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January 24

God Our Being

Living the Christian life does have to do with participating in a range of spiritual practices and disciplines. And so we pray, partake of the sacraments, read Scripture, and so on. But more fundamental to all of these activities is the joy of God’s presence within us and in our world.

At the very heart of Christian experience lies a profoundly mystical

reality: God at work within us through the Holy Spirit. And to put that more strongly: God makes himself at home within us. This is the swan song of Immanuel—God with us.

This has two important dimensions. The first, God makes himself at home in making us in God’s own image. And this creative initiative is complemented by the redemption in Christ where the Trinity abides with us and in us.

Gregory of Nazianzus, in the light of the above, reminds us that “we ought to think of God even more often than we draw our breath.”24

This is possible not so much because we are so hard at work in

remembering, but because God is constantly at work within us. Our awareness comes from God’s presence.

Like a fountain bubbling upward from deep and sometimes seeming desert places, the Spirit is mysteriously sustaining us and calling us to greater spiritual attentiveness so that the life of God may spring up within us and amongst us.

Reflection

When God is at the depths of our being, all we do has the flavor of the Spirit. This is living a graced life.