Villa la Paz Newsletter June 2015
Omnipresent: present in all places at the same time
Ubiquitous: present, or seeming to be present, everywhere at the same time
Webster’s New World Dictionary Third College Edition
Oh how we long to find God in some moment of spiritual ecstasy, looking for the Divine in some spectacular or extraordinary event. Yet God comes to us, if we are to believe-fully believe-what scripture says, in a humble disguise, in unexpected places. God comes to us poor, hungry, thirsty, diseased, imprisoned, alone and lonely. God comes to us in an old woman forced to use a public street for a toilet. God comes to us in people, places and ways that make it difficult for us to see Him or receive Him. We don’t find God where we expect or want to find Him.
Gerard Thomas Straub
I sought to hear the voice of God and climbed the topmost steeple, but God declared: “Go down again-I dwell among the people.”
Blessed John Henry Newman
The discovery of God lies in the daily and the ordinary, not in the spectacular and the heroic. If we cannot find God in the routines of home and shop, then we will not find Him at all.
Richard J. Foster
Know that even when you are in the kitchen, our Lord moves amidst the pots and pans.
St. Teresa of Avila
We have a tendency to compartmentalize God, to imagine Him in a far off place which we call heaven. We experience His presence in church or other places of worship but not in the creases and folds of our hectic lives. One who loves wants to be with the one loved and since God is love perforce He has to be present among us even in the most ordinary aspects of our lives. Can you imagine that? God is present with you at work, as you clean your home, as you care for your spouse and children, in all circumstances, no matter how humdrum or ordinary. What a tremendous liberating thought! We are never alone. In the most joyous occasions, a birth, a wedding, a graduation, or in the direst, loss of employment, an illness, the death of a loved one, God is there, accompanying us, sharing our joys and sorrows. Why do we not experience His presence? Why are we not comforted and consoled by the knowledge that He is constantly with us? It is because of our lack of faith. We can be told something and accept its veracity but in order to embrace it completely we must have faith. Faith enables us to enter fully into our relationship with God, experience His constant presence and revel in it. There is no greater gift than this.
God walks with us. He scoops us up in His arms or simply sits with us in silent strength until we cannot avoid the awesome recognition that yes, even now, He is there.
Gloria Gaither
O Lord, I know that it is in silence, in a quiet moment, in a forgotten corner that you will meet me, call me by name and speak to me a word of peace. It is in my stillest hour that you become the risen Lord to me.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
Nowhere is God’s presence in our world more evident than in children. He tells us several times through His Word that we must become as children if we are to enter His kingdom. We must become vulnerable, innocent, trusting and love unconditionally, the attributes of childhood. We must emulate their joy and exuberance, for where there is joy there is God.
Our sincere gratitude to you for enabling us to care for our children. We love you and wish you God’s peace.