Reflection
Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.
John 20:19-31
Our task is not to search for the God beyond but to become aware of the God who is within, who sustains us, who is the unconditional gift of life and of love. God’s presence is the source of all being, of our being. That will not change no matter what we do. In our prayer, we seek to encounter the Presence of God. In scripture we read that God is with us always. What can change is our awareness of that and the effect that will have on our living and our peace of heart.
Prayer
Speak Lord, your servant is listening.
1 Samuel 3. 9
Action
Explore your image of God? What does it mean to you when you think of God as within, of God as the vivifying spirit?
Suggested Reading
Now a week later his disciples were again inside
and Thomas was with them.
Jesus came, although the doors were locked,
and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.”
Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands,
and bring your hand and put it into my side,
and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”
Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me?
Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.
John 20:19-31
Don’t you realize that you are God’s temple and the Spirit of God is within you?
1 Cor. 3:16
For in God we live, and move, and have our being.
Acts 17:28
it is time to embrace the cosmic and planetary context within which our life story and the story of all life unfolds. We belong to a reality greater than ourselves, and it is within that enlarged context that we will rediscover the benign mystery within which everything is endowed with purpose and meaning.
Diarmuid O’Murchu
God is not a being among other beings, but the infinite Whither that makes possible the very functioning of our human spirit.
Elizabeth A. Johnson
Let’s state it clearly: One great idea of the biblical revelation is that God is manifest in the ordinary, in the actual, in the daily, in the now, in the concrete incarnations of life, and not through purity codes and moral achievement contests, which are seldom achieved anyway.
Richard Rohr
Though we are incomplete, God loves us completely. Though we are imperfect, God loves us perfectly. Though we may feel lost and without compass, God’s love encompasses us completely. … God loves every one of us, even those who are flawed, rejected, awkward, sorrowful, or broken.
Dieter F. Uchtdorf
We should be astonished at the goodness of God, stunned that God should bother to call us by name, our mouths wide open at God’s love, bewildered that at this very moment we are standing on holy ground.
Brennan Manning
The feeling remains that God is on the journey, too.
Teresa of Avila
People see God every day, they just don’t recognize him.
Pearl Bailey
God is an unutterable sigh, planted in the depths of the soul.
Jean Paul Richter