Presence

Invite
Let us remember… that we are in the Holy Presence of God.
Let us remember… that we are in the Holy Presence of God.
Let us remember… that we are in the Holy Presence of God.

Encounter in the Word
After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people,* to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.
‘I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.
John 17:1-8

Reflect
Have you ever felt a little off? I like to use the term “funk” to describe those times when something just seems to be not quite right. I think that we all have felt this way from time to time. In our faith life we can feel like we are in a funk as well. We can feel like God is more a construct of our imaginations than a reality in our lives.
In Jesus prayer today, he tells us a little about what kind of life he wants for us. Jesus came to give us a life to be lived. It is a life that is eternal. Elsewhere, Jesus tells us that he came that we “might have life and have it abundantly.” In today’s reading, Jesus tells us that this life comes from knowing God.
To know someone is to have spent time with them. The more time you spend with someone, the more you will get to know them. The people that we know the most are those that we share our own life with as well. They are the ones we go to when we have a question, a struggle, a hope, a fear, something to celebrate or something to mourn. The people that we know the most, are those that we spend time with, just hanging out.
To know God is to have a relationship with God. It is to share our life with God and actively engage God throughout our day. It means that we remember that we are in the Holy Presence of God every moment of everyday.
Take time today to pause and just remember that God is with you.

Prayer
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.