POPE LEO XIV
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How often do we think about God's presence? Do we truly believe that God is there, no matter where we are in the world?
Often it can be difficult to know, not only with our mind but also with our heart, that God's presence is everywhere.
Our eyes cannot see God's presence and so we tend to forget.
This is why it is very important to remind ourselves often that God is there.
Acting reverently in the presence of God
St. Francis de Sales provides the following meditation on God's presence in his Introduction to the Devout Life:
[A] lively earnest realization that His Presence is universal; that is to say, that He is everywhere, and in all, and that there is no place, nothing in the world, devoid of His Most Holy Presence, so that, even as birds on the wing meet the air continually, we, let us go where we will, meet with that Presence always and everywhere. It is a truth which all are ready to grant, but all are not equally alive to its importance.
He then gives the following analogy to help visualize our approach to God's presence:
A blind man when in the presence of his prince will preserve a reverential demeanor if told that the king is there, although unable to see him; but practically, what men do not see they easily forget, and so readily lapse into carelessness and irreverence. Just so, my child, we do not see our God, and although faith warns us that He is present, not beholding Him with our mortal eyes, we are too apt to forget Him, and act as though He were afar.
We may not be able to see God, but we should still act in a manner that recognizes his presence.
If we forget that God is there, we simply need to remind ourselves and try again, doing what we can to put ourselves into his presence.
