Volume I, Treatise VI, Chapter II

In What the Exercise of Walking Always in God’s Presence Consists

THaT we may derive more profit from this exercise, I shall at present explain in what it consists. In consists in two points; t.e., in two acts—the one of the understanding, and the other of the will. That of the understanding must precede, as being always required and presupposed for the producing any act of the will. Now this act is made by considering, that God is everywhere present; that he fills and replenishes the universe; that he is all in all; and all in every part of each creature that has abeing. And hereupon we must produce an act of faith; because, in effect, it is a truth that faith teaches us. ‘For he is not far from any one of us,” says St. Paul; “in him we live, move, and have our being.” (Acts 17:27,28) We must not imagine God as far from us, or as if he were not present to us; for he is within us. “I sought you, O Lord,” says St. Austin, “without me, and you are within me.” God is present in us, and he is within us after a more real manner than we are within ourselves. It is he that gives life to all living creatures; he is the force and motion of all things that move, and the being of all creatures that are; he conserves all things by the power of his presence; and, without the continual help and succour thereof, all things would cease to be and return to their first nothing. Consider, therefore, that you are filled with God, encompassed and surrounded by God, and that you, asit were, swim in God. These words, “the heavens and earth are full of thy glory,” are words which agree admirably well with the subject of this meditation.

Some, to render this consideration the more easy, represent the whole world filled with God, as it is, and themselves in the midst of this infinite ocean of the divine immensity, as a sponge plunged into the midst of the sea. This comparison at first sight, seems to be very just and proper, and to be within the reach of the human understanding; but at bottom, it is far from explaining sufficiently what we are speaking of. For this sponge in the midst of the sea, if the sea be very high, keeps upon the very

Vol. I. Zz surface of the waves; if it descends low, it touches the bottom of the sea; and if it is carried either on the one side or the other, it meets with the shore. But in God there is nothing of all this. There is no end nor bounds in him, because he is immense, and infinite. “If I ascend to heaven,” says David, ‘‘ you are there; if I descend to hell, you are present. IfI take my wings early in the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there also shall your hand hold me.” (Psalms 138:8) Moreover, as the sponge is a body, so the water is a body also, which can never penetrate all parts thereof; but as to us, we are in all, and in all parts penetrated by God, who is a pure Spirit. Comparisons of this kind, though very imperfect, are, notwithstanding, good and profitable; because in some manner they help us to conceive the infinite immensity of God, and after what manner he is intimately present in all things; and it is for this reason that St. Austin makes use of them in sundry places.

Moreover, we must remember that, to place ourselves in the presence of God, it is not necessary we should represent him as by our side, or in this or that particular place, nor to imagine him as under such or sucha form. Some imagine Jesus Christ to walk by their side, and continually to superintend all their actions; and thus they keep themselves constantly in the presence of God. And amongst these who practise this method, some represent him hanging on the cross; others as bound to the pillar; others as praying in the garden of Olives, and sweating drops of blood; or in some other stage of his passion. Several represent him to themselves asin some other of the mysteries and stages of his life, according to what touches them the most; or else they imagine him sometimes in one manner, sometimes in another, according to the disposition their soul is in, or their different feelings in devotion. All this is good, when it is performed well; but commonly speaking, this is not what is most expedient, because all those representations of sensible images do nothing else but tiye the mind and engage the head: St. Bernard and St. Bonaventure without doubt knew, in this point, secrets we are ignorant of; which was the cause they felt therein so great a facility and sweetness. For sometimes they imagined they heard those words of the spouse in the Canticles, “Arise, my beloved; arise, my fair one; come, my dove, enter into the clifts of the rock, into the hollow places of the wall.” (Canticle of Canticles 2:13) So they hid themselves in spirit in the wounds of Jesus Christ, entered into his holy side, and there found an assured refuge in all their afflictions, a sovereign remedy in all their infirmities, and an infallible ease and comfort in all their pains. Another time, applying to themselves those words of Isaias: ‘‘ You shall drink with joy the waters of the fountains of our Saviour” (Isa. xii. 3), they imagined the foot of the cross to be fixed in their hearts, and with an extreme satisfaction received into their mouths those drops of blood which ran from the precious wounds of the Saviour of the world. These great saints found the benefit of this practice; but if we should apply ourselves to exercise the presence of God in this manner, it might indeed succeed well for a day, or for a month, but would perhaps hinder us from praying the whole year after, and we should do nothing more than bewilder ourselves to no purpose.

We shall easily perceive how necessary this advertisement is, if we consider that the best writers on prayer, when they speak of the representation of the place or subject—which is only one of the preambles of meditation, whereby we endeavour to render things as present to us, as ifin effect they passed before our eyes—admonish us not to insist too much upon fictions and representations of this kind, because from them many inconveniences and illusions may arise. Now if a simple prelude, which takes up so very little time to make it, and is also made when we have nothing else to do, requires so painful and dangerous an attention of mind, what difficulty and prejudice would the applying ourselves all day long to preserve these images we have formed to ourselves in prayer, even whilst we are busy about other affairs, occasion in us? The presence of God, which we now speak of, is entirely free from all these sort of fictions; because we mean to speak of his presence, as he is God; and in this there is no reason to feign or imagine that he is here or there; all we are to do is to believe as a certain truth that he is really and effectually everywhere. Jesus Christ, as he is man, is in heaven and in the blessed sacrament of the altar; but he is not so in all places, and therefore when we imagine Jesus Christ present, as he is man, it is in effect a pure work of our imagination; but as he is God, he is always present within us, and everywhere without us. ‘The Spirit of our Lord fills the whole earth.” (Wisdom 1:7) And there is no need to imagine to ourselves that which is not; but to make acts of faith of that which is. Secondly, we may form an idea of the humanity of Jesus Christ, and figure it to ourselves, because he has a body, and a figure; but we cannot represent to ourselves God, as he is God, or conceive any figure of him, or of what he is, because he has neither body nor figure, but isa pure Spirit. For the same reason we cannot represent to ourselves even an angel as he is, nor our own soul as it is; how far less, therefore, can we represent God to ourselves, after such manner as he is, or make any portrait of him in our imagination?

But you will say, how then must we consider God present? I answer, by forming a simple act of faith hereupon; supposing that he is actually and effectually present; because faith assures us that he is so, without searching any farther how he is present. Thus Moses did, who, as St. Paul relates, “considered God, invisible as he was, and had him always present in his mind, as if he had beheld him with his eyes.” (Hebrews 11:27) Thus when we speak to a friend in the dark, we think of nothing else but ‘of entertaining him, and of that satisfaction we have, by his being present with us, without amusing ourselves in painting him to our imagination; in the same manner we ought simply to repose in this consideration, that God is present; and content ourselves with enjoying the fruit we can reap from his presence. Because if we will amuse ourselves in representing him to our mind as he is, we shall never be able to accomplish it. It is yet too dark a night to see him in this manner; let us, therefore, wait till the morning clears up, and till the broad daylight of the next life appears. “For when he shall discover himself to us in his glory, we shall be like him; because we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2) At present our sight is too weak; and his apparition in a cloud to Moses, teaches us that he wishes his presence to be so concealed from us here below, that we cannot see him but with the eyes of a faith blind and perfectly submissive.

All that I have said regards the first act, which is that of the understanding, But this is not the chief point in the matter we treat of; for we must not only employ our understanding to consider God as present, but we must afterwards exercise our will in loving him, and in uniting ourselves to him as present; and it is in this, that the chief exercise of the presence of God consists, as we shall make appear in the following chapter.

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