The real presence of the Most Holy Trinity in our souls is something that cannot be perceived by any natural or supernatural efforts of our own. Therefore, any straining of the mind or worse still of the imagination in the hope of establishing contact with the Divine Guest within us is not only useless but harmful. Though we should often think on the fact of God's presence, we cannot have any experience or awareness of it, unless He himself takes the initiative and reveals his presence to us.

God does not manifest his presence by a vision or by direct contact the mind; that is reserved for Heaven. Because of God's infinite brightness he cannot be seen by the natural power of the mind. "His dwelling is in unapproachable light; no human eye has seen or can see him". - 1Tim. 6:16 - Not even a supernaturally infused idea can reveal him to us because no created idea is capable of representing him whose being is infinite. He can be seen only when he directly unites himself to the mind without any intermediary idea as he does in heaven. Short of the beatific vision in heaven, no man can see God. "The soul", writes Saint Teresa, "in a way which has nothing to do with the outward senses, realizes that it is very close to God...That is not because it sees him either with its bodily eyes or with its spiritual eyes. The soul does not see the good Master teaching it although it knows that he is at its side".

God makes known his presence by touching the will with his love. "The love of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us". - Rom. 5:5 - Through this touch on the will the mind, under the influence of the gift of wisdom, has a certain experience of God's immediate and loving presence without seeing him. This experience gives the soul a profound peace. The gift of Wisdom is the highest of the gifts of the Holy Spirit which are possessed by all those in sanctifying grace though in very many their activity is obstructed or obscured by habitual venial sins and worldly preoccupations.

"All tradition", writes Rev. Fr. Garrigou-Largrange, "associates with the inspirations of the gift of wisdom that loving knowledge of God which is quite different from speculative knowledge...Wisdom makes us judge all things by the taste, by the affective and sweet knowledge of God...Although in this life wisdom remains in the obscurity of faith without seeing God as he is, nevertheless it contemplates him in his intimate life in the measure in which we have an experimental knowledge of him as the soul of our soul, the life of our life...by the action he exercises in us and by the spiritual joy and peace we experience therefrom".

In thinking of God's presence within us, we can quite lawfully regard our heart as in a special sense the sanctuary of this presence. Saint Paul insists that we are to regard our very bodies as the temples of God: "Surely you know that your bodies are the shrines of the Holy Spirit who dwells in you...Glorify God by making your bodies the shrines of his presence". - 1Cor. 6:18-20 - But nearly always when speaking of the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit within us, it is with the heart he associates them because they are the presence and activity of Love. "God has put his seal on us and given us a fore-state of his Spirit in our hearts". - 2Cor. 1:22; Rom. 5:5; Eph. 5:18-19 -

There are many other texts of a similar type. If then our bodies are the temples of God, our hearts are as it were the inner tabernacle of his real presence. Of course, we are thinking of the heart permeated and animated by the soul which is, itself quickened with supernatural life by the Holy Spirit who is like the very soul of the soul; we are thinking of the heart taken as the symbol of love and the seat of love in the sense that it is the organ that primarily registers the movement of love that take place in the will. The special devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, so warmly approved by the Church is directed, as theologians explain, to the real physical Heart of the Lord, considered as the human symbol and as it were the organ of his love for us.

The Sacred Heart is invoked too as "the holy Temple of God", and "the Tabernacle of the Most High", not only because it is united to the divine Person of the Word but because of the presence and indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Again devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is directed to her real physical heart as the symbol and organ of her love for us and next to the heart of Jesus, the supreme shrine of the Holy Spirit. We need have no qualms, therefore, in making the divine presence within us more concrete by associating it particularly with the heart.

The indwelling God, therefore, approaches us through the heart rather than directly through the mind. Consequently our approach to him will also be chiefly through the heart. As we have seen, God reveals himself to us by touching the will and not by directly touching the intelligence so that his presence is to be thought of as primarily a presence in the heart. Our contact with God will be in the heart then, and what is required for this is not mental concentration or difficult introspection but a loving and simple conversation of the heart comparable to and taking the place of the intimate conversation we tend to carry on with ourselves when alone.

This conversation with ourselves is the expression to ourselves of the inmost loves, longings, hopes, disappointments and joys of our heart. It goes on spontaneously and almost unconsciously without any straining of the mind to "see" ourselves or become conscious of ourselves. Now the interior life proper to a Christian consists in transforming this intimate communing with self into an interior intimate communing with that Other who alone can enter substantially into our hearts and make his home there. It requires no great mental effort but a frequent quiet pondering on the simple fact of his presence and the habit of directing our inner conversation to him as to a friend who is with us in the dark. The effect will be the gradual substitution of God for our own ego as the goal and centre of our thoughts and aspirations.

BY REV. FR. ANSELM MOYNIHAN O.P.

                                                                       Page 1

If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -