Sometimes we think that God is only found within the four walls of a church, or even more narrowly, only inside the tabernacle.
While his Real Presence is certainly found within a consecrated host that is housed inside a Catholic Church, God is also present in all of his creation.
We often forget this simple truth, not realizing that God is right next to us and is trying to speak to us through the events of our day.
Finding God in all things
St. Francis de Sales provides a powerful lesson in finding God in our everyday lives in his Introduction to the Devout Life.
He does so by narrating a handful of stories from the lives of the saints, explaining how each one found God in an unlikely encounter.
The first lesson he relates is from the life of St. Francis of Assisi:
When St. Francis saw a solitary sheep amid a flock of goats; “See,” said he to his companion, “how gentle the poor sheep is among the goats, even as was Our Lord among the Pharisees;” and seeing a boar devour a little lamb, “Poor little one,” he exclaimed, weeping, “how vividly is my Savior’s Death set forth in thee!”
Another lesson comes from the life of St. Basil the Great:
St. Basil the Great says that the rose amid its thorns preaches a lesson to men. “All that is pleasant in this life” (so it tells us mortals) “is mingled with sadness—no joy is altogether pure—all enjoyment is liable to be marred by regrets, marriage is saddened by widowhood, children bring anxiety, glory often turns to shame, neglect follows upon honor, weariness on pleasure, sickness on health. Truly the rose is a lovely flower,” the saint goes on to say, “but it moves me to sadness, reminding me as it does that for my sin the earth was condemned to bring forth thorns.”
St. Francis de Sales even recounts an unnamed person who saw God in the world:
Another devout soul, gazing upon a brook wherein the starlit sky of a calm summer’s night was reflected, exclaims, “O my God, when Thou callest me to dwell in Thy heavenly tabernacles, these stars will be beneath my feet; and even as those stars are now reflected here below, so are we Thy creatures reflected above in the living waters of Thy Divine Love.”
The basic lesson is that if we have the eyes to see, we can recognize God's presence and his providential hand in everything and every day of our lives.
