Volume I, Treatise VI, Chapter I

Of the Exercise of the Presence of God, and the Great Advantages Included Therein

“SsxEx our Lord, and be confirmed, seek his face continually.” (Psalms 104:4) St Austin says, that the face and presence of God are one and the same thing; so that to seek continually God’s face, is to walk always in his presence, by turning all the desires and motions of our heart towards him. Hesichius and St. Bonaventure affirm, “that to employ ourselves continually in the exercise of the presence of God, is to begin in this life to enjoy the felicity of the blessed in the next.” For though on earth we cannot clearly see him as he is in himself, as the blessed do in heaven; yet we may at least imitate them, as much as our frailty will permit, by placing ourselves continually in his presence, by acts of love and adoration. For his goodness was not satisfied with having created us to enjoy him eternally in heaven only, but would have us to enjoy a part of his beatitude even upon earth, by always walking in his presence, and continually adoring, and beholding him through the clouds and obscurity of faith, which make us at present “see him through a glass darkly,” instead of seeing him as we shall hereafter, face to face. (1 Corinthians 13:12) “The sight we have of God at present,”’ says Hesichius, ‘¢is that which causes our merit, but that which we shall then have, will become our recompense.” (Hesich. in cent. ult.)

That we may, therefore, merit so great a reward, let us continually do what will make us obtain it; let us view God in all our actions, and as much as we can, let us always have him present before our eyes. The angels who take care to guard and defend us, acquit themselves in such manner of their charge, that they never lose the sight of God. “I seemed,” says the angel Raphael to Toby, ‘‘as though I had eaten and drunk with you; but I make use of an invisible food, and of drink which men cannot perceive.” (Tobias 12) ¥9.) The angels nourish themselves with God; and the Son of God himself tells us, “that they behold the face of his Father that is in heaven.” (Mat. xviii. 11.) Let us endeavour to imitate them in this, that whether we cat, drink, or converse with men, it may appear that we have no other entertainment or nourishment but God. Let us continually endeavour to partake of this invisible food, and entertain ourselves with what we cannot see; and this nourishment and entertainment consist, in always beholding God, in always loving him, and in always conforming to his divine will. The saints and patriarchs of the Old Testament took very particular care to walk always in God’s presence, and the Royal Prophet was not contented with praising him only seven times a-day, but as he says—“I had always our Lord present before my eyes, because I know that he is always at my right hand, to hinder anything from troubling me.” (Psal. xv. 8.) It was, in fine, so familiar and customary a practice with them to place themselves in God’s presence, that they commonly had no other way of expressing themselves than to say, ‘“Our Lord beholds me, in whose presence I am.” (3 Kings 17:1) And, without doubt, their great attention to this devotion proceeded from the perfect knowledge they had of the great advantage of walking in God’s presence, and of thinking that he continually beheld them. This alone is sufficient to oblige us to be very particular in all our actions; for what servant is there so insolent as to despise his master’s orders, even in his presence? But God is our master; he continually beholds us; he is our judge; he is all-powerful; he can make the earth to open, and cause hell to swallow us up, as he has several times done to those that displeased him or: provoked him to anger. Who, therefore, dares to be so bold as to provoke him? When I attentively consider, O Lord, says St. Austin, that you have your eyes continually fixed upon me, and that night and day you keep a continual watch over me, with so great a care as if, neither in heaven nor in earth, you had any other creature to govern besides myself— when I think you behold all my actions, that you penetrate my most hidden and secret thoughts, and that all my desires are exposed to your view, I feel myself filled with confusion. Without doubt they ought to impose upon themselves a strict obligation to live well, who consider that all they do is done in the presence of a Judge who observes all, and from whom nothing can be concealed. If the presence of a grave person is sufficient to keep us to our duty, what effect ought not the presence of the infinite majesty of God produce in us?

St. Jerom, upon the reproach which God made to Jerusalem, “because it had forgot him” (Ezechiel 22:12), takes notice “that the remembrance of God banishes all sorts of sins.” (Lib. de fide Resur. t. 4.). St. Ambrose says as much; and the same St. Jerom adds in another place, “that when we find ourselves tempted to commit any sin, if we would think that God beholds us, and that he is present with us, we should never consent to anything that were displeasing to him.” (Ibid.) There needed no other consideration than this to oblige the sinner Thais to change her life, and to do penance in the remotest part of the desert. ‘ Does not our Lord,” says Job, “consider my paths, and does he not count all the steps I take?” (Job 31:4) This being so, who dares be so bold as to sin, or to do anything that is displeasing to him?

On the contrary, the ruin and damnation of the wicked proceed from nothing else but because they forget that God is present and that he beholds them. “There is no one,” say they, “that sees us.” (Isaias 47:10) ‘‘ Our Lord shall not see our last end.” (Jeremias 12:4) And this St. Jerom takes notice of upon the twenty-second chapter of Ezechiel, where the prophet, after a long enumeration or catalogue of the crimes of Jerusalem, reproaches her in the end with her forgetfulness of God as the cause of all those disorders she had fallen into. A horse without a bridle casts himself headlong into a precipice, and a ship without a rudder cannot but perish. A man also that has not the bridle of God’s presence, and is not governed by his fear, runs headlong to his own destruction, and abandons himself to all his irregular passions. ‘He has not God before his eyes,” suys the Royal Prophet, “and therefore he is defiled with all sorts of crimes.” (Psal’. ix. 26.)

The presence of God is that sovereign and universal remedy that St. Basil prescribes for the overcoming all the temptations of the devil and all the repugnances of nature. So that, if you desire a short and easy means to gain perfection, and such a one as contains within itself the force and efficacy of all others, make use of this, which God himself gave to Abraham, a very powerful one indeed—“Walk before me,” says he, “and you shall be periect.” (Genesis 17:1) Hereupon we must take notice, that though the text says “be you pertect,” yet here, as in many other places of Scripture, the future is expressed by the imperative, thereby to let us see the infallibility of the success. It is, therefore, a thing so very certain, that you will become perfect by setting God before your eyes, that from the very moment you apply yourself with al] attention to his presence, you may account that you are perfect. For as the stars borrow all their lustre and virtue from the sun, so the just, who are stars in God’s Church, derive from his presence, and from their continual elevation of heart to him, all that light with which they interiorly burn before him, and exteriorly before men; and also all the virtue they possess, in order to promote the general good of the whole world. There is nothing can better express the need we have always of God’s presence than this simile. See how the moon depends upon the sun; see how necessary it is for her to keep her face always to it. Her light varies as her position with respect to the sun varies: she acts not upon sublunary bodies, but according to the light communicated to her by the sun; so that this action increases or diminishes according as her borrowed light increases or diminishes; and as soon as anything interposes between the sun and moon, the moon presently loses its light and force. The same thing happens between the soul and God, who is the sun; and it is for this reason that the saints so carefully recommend to us that we have the presence of God constantly before our eyes.

St. Ambrose and St. Bernard, speaking of the application we ought to have in calling it continually to mind, say:—“That, as there is not a moment in which man enjoys not the effects of God’s goodness, so there ought not to be a moment but he should have God present in his thoughts.” (Lib. de dig. con. human, c. 2.) And St. Bernard adds, in another place, that “in all our thoughts and actions we ought to remember the presence of God, and make account that all the time is lost in which we think not of him.” (Bern. in spec. Monach.) God never forgets us; it is very just, then, that we should endeavour never to forget him. St. Austin, upon these words of the Psalmist, “1 will fix my eyes upon you” (Psalms 30:8), cries out, “I will never withdraw my eyes from beholding you; because you never take off yours from me; I will imitate the prophet.” (Aug. sup. (Psalms 31)) “‘ My eyes shall always be fixed upon our Lord.” St. Gregory of Nazianzen says, “that we ought not to breathe as often as we ought to think of God.” (Greg. in 1 orat. Theol.) For as we every moment stand in need of breathing to refresh our heart, by tempering the natural heat and preserving our life; so we stand in need of having recourse to God by prayer, to repress the irregular heat of concupiscence that incites us continually to sin, and thereby leads us to death.

About ReligiousBookshelf.com · A Supernerd Media project