God’s love for you is the focus of June, the month dedicated to the Sacred Heart, symbol of God’s love. I’ll be posting excerpts from my book A Love Affair with God. Here is the first one from the chapter on presence:

Loving a Human Being

When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is presence. How can you love if you are not there? ~Thick Nhat Hanh

Being alone with the beloved, gazing into their eyes, is intoxicating. It doesn’t matter if no words are exchanged. Silently basking in the other’s presence is enough. Doing things together is sheer joy. At the sight of the loved one, the heart leaps. In a crowded room, the one in love is instantly aware of the special someone and remains conscious of their presence.

Time with the loved one passes all too swiftly, as though life were on fast forward. The lover wishes the time together would never end.

When the two are apart, a person in love keenly misses the significant other. He or she is restless, appears preoccupied, and feels as incomplete as the lion, scarecrow, and tinman of Oz. Even surrounded by other people, the lover is lonely. Time drags while anticipating meeting the beloved again.

The devoted one strives to see the loved one as many times and for as long as possible. He or she is creative in devising plans to meet. An encounter may require going out of the way a few steps or a thousand miles. It may entail adjusting a schedule or sacrificing a favorite activity. Being with the loved one supersedes everything and everyone else. If plans for meeting fall through, the heart is crushed.

God’s Love for You

The mystic Meister Eckhart, OP, asserted, “No human being has ever desired anything as much as God desires to be with him or her.”

You can believe with confidence that God mightily desires your company. At the Last Supper Jesus said, “I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also” (John 14:3). God also promised, “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me” (Revelation 3:20).

Dining with God is an image of the intimacy you are privileged to experience with your divine Lover. Such intimacy, however, depends on being attuned to God’s voice and opening the door of your heart. William Holman Hunt illustrated this in his painting The Light of the World. Jesus, wearing a crown of thorns and holding a lantern, knocks at a door. But that door lacks a doorknob and so can only be opened from inside.

Nicholas of Cusa expressed God’s omnipresence geometrically: “God is he whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to our holy God as Most High (transcendent), yes, but also Most Near (immanent). (#2581) St. Paul preached, “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). God totally engulfs you. This means God is available and there for you 24/7. A very short story serves as a metaphor for God’s ubiquity:

Little fish asks old fish, “Where is the thing called ocean?” Old fish replies, “It is the thing you are in right now.” “But this is just water,” protests the little fish, disappointed; and he swims away to continue his futile search.

Psalm 139

Sacred Scripture limns God’s all-encompassing presence in beautiful poetry:

Where can I go from your spirit?

   Or where can I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there;

   if I make my bed in Sheol, [land of the dead]

you are there.

  If I take the wings of the morning

           and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,

  even there your hand shall lead me,

           and your right hand shall hold me fast.

                                                      (Psalm 139:7–10)

You could expand this psalm with personal verses: “If I have to work with so-and-so who drives me crazy, you are there.” “If I am being interviewed for a new position, you are there.” “If I am diagnosed with a chronic disease, you are there.” “If my mother dies, you are there.”

God in Creation

God surrounds you above, below, and on every side. “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” (Jeremiah 23:24) the Almighty questions. God has always been present, animating everything from an infinitesimal microbe to a fifteen-ton Tyrannosaurus rex. In the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas, Jesus declared, “Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.” Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato Si’ (Praise Be to You) affirmed God’s presence within every created thing:

“The creatures of this world no longer appear to us under merely natural guise because the risen One is mysteriously holding them to himself and directing them towards fullness as their end. The very flowers of the field and the birds which his human eyes contemplated and admired are now imbued with his radiant presence.” (100)

One sublime poem of Gerald Manley Hopkins, SJ, begins, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” In a letter he elaborated: “All things therefore are charged with love, are charged with God and, if we knew how to touch them, give off sparks and take fire, yield drops and flow, ring and tell of him.”

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ, made the same point: “By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us. We imagine it as distant and inaccessible, whereas in fact we live steeped in its burning layers.”

St. Catherine of Siena wrote, “What then is not a sanctuary? Where then can I not kneel and pray at a shrine made holy by God’s presence?” St. Angela of Foligno once cried out, “The world is pregnant with God!”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning conveys the same idea in her epic novel/poem “Aurora Leigh”:

Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
And only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

Scripture Testifying to God’s Presence

It follows that God is unshakeable as your shadow. He promises, “I will never leave you or forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). As Pharaoh’s army was in hot pursuit of the Hebrews, they called out to Moses in fright. He replied, “The Lord himself will fight for you; you have only to keep still” (Exodus 14:14). And the army drowned. Then while the chosen people trekked through the desert, God led them as a pillar of cloud by day and at night as a pillar of fire.

The words God spoke to Joshua he also speaks to you: “Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9). There is not one second when God is not close at hand, delighting in you and loving you. As a matter of fact, God dwells in the depths of your being.

God Alive in You

A Sunday school teacher asked his little students: “Does God ever take a vacation?” Hilary answered, “Of course. God went with me on my vacation.” God is not only all around you; he is within you. As a Carmelite website states: “A God is the Divine Guest of my soul, dwelling there day and night, desirous of receiving the unceasing homage of my intimate friendship and of my love!”

Blessed John of Ruysbroeck noted, “God is the one who approaches us from the inside out.”

After temptations plagued St. Catherine of Siena, somewhat miffed with Jesus, she demanded, “Where were you when I was in such a frightful situation?” He assured her, “Daughter, I was in your heart, fortifying you with grace.”

Jesus promised, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them” (John 14:23). He also proposed an image for your vital union with him: a vine and branches. As long as you are attached to Jesus, divine life courses through you, invigorating you. St. Paul wrote, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). By virtue of your baptism, Christ likewise lives in you. You are a walking tabernacle!

In the ongoing inner life of the Trinity, when the Father thinks about himself, the Son, the Word, comes into being. The Father and Son behold each other and respond with a love so powerful that it becomes another Person, namely the Holy Spirit. This Spirit, the bond that unites the Trinity, is love personified. Jesus sent this Holy Spirit, Love, to you. As St. Paul claimed, “The Spirit of God dwells in you” (Romans 8:9). Love inhabits your very being!

Realizing God’s Presence

You could be acutely aware of God’s abiding presence during exceptional moments. For example, you might realize that God is with you while you are celebrating a significant occasion like an anniversary. Or this awareness may occur when you accomplish something you thought impossible—like driving safely through a blizzard or mastering a new computer. It happened to a woman I know. Although she was a shy introvert, she agreed to deliver the eulogy at the funeral for a friend’s mother named Louise. Driving to the church, she was filled with dread . . . until she noticed the license plate on the car in front of her: 4LOUISE. She interpreted this as a message that God would empower her. Her fear shrank.

You might be overwhelmed with the knowledge of God’s presence while engaged in a mundane task like folding laundry or doing dishes. Any of these experiences might bring tears to your eyes.

Divine Constancy

God, whose love for you is immeasurable, proves it by outrageous things: acts of self-surrender. First, God became a man so he could love you with a human heart, reveal himself to you, and die to keep you near him for all eternity. Second, the God-Man surrendered to a humiliating, agonizing death. And third, to be with you during your earthly life, at every Mass God condescends to assume the forms of bread and wine—small, vulnerable, inanimate things! All over the world, God is placed on altars, locked in tabernacles, and within our very bodies. Such is the folly of God’s love. Appropriately, the Eucharist is known as the Real Presence.

God aches for you, his creature, to be with him forever. When you ignore God, forget about God, or are angry at God—even if you doubt God exists—this steadfast Lover does not jilt you. No, God patiently waits for your attention like a parent with unflagging love waits for an obstreperous teenager to grow up. God loves you unconditionally.

An Image of God’s Faithfulness

The mother in the book The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown is a beautiful image of God. When her little bunny announces that he will assume different forms in order to hide from her, she responds with endearing lines like the following:

If you become a fish in a trout stream,

   I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you.

If you become a crocus in a hidden garden,

   I will be a gardener. And I will find you.

If you become a bird a fly away from me,

   I will be a tree that you come home to.

If you become a little boy and run into a house,

   I will become your [human] mother and

   catch you in my arms and hug you.

During your sojourn on earth, you will never be separated from God. His perfect, unwavering love for you guarantees that. Jesus always lives up to his name Emmanuel, which means “God is with us.” He confirms this by reassuring you, “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). Take heart: You are never alone!

Blessed Ramon Lull wrote, “What is the greatest darkness? The absence of my Beloved. And what is the greatest light? The presence of my Beloved.” Because God is omnipresent, every day of your life you walk in the light.

• When are you most aware that God is with you?

• What in nature assures you of God’s presence?

• When has God come to your rescue?

Dan Schutte set the words of Psalm 139 to music. Here is his version, “You Are Near”: