God Is With Us: God’s Presence in our Daily Life & Struggles

A Peek ‘Behind the Curtain’

Here at Pilgrim Center of Hope, our staff consults monthly themes as we create articles, reflections, speaking presentations, and events. We discern these themes at our annual planning workshop held every October; utilizing the Catholic liturgical calendar to focus on feast days, the liturgical seasons (Ordinary, Lent, Easter, Advent), and the Sunday Gospel messages to help us in creating our content.

Having a monthly theme mined from the rich treasures of the Catholic Church and through the flow of her seasons, provides an infinite source of spiritual jewels and assures us we are being guided by the ever-renewing breath of the Holy Spirit. Mother Church is as St. Augustine describes, “Oh Beauty, Ever Ancient, Ever New.”

Our April theme is: God is With Us; God’s Presence in our Daily Life & Struggles. I find it so consoling how a theme we chose last October is exactly what we all need to hear as we struggle through the pandemic. I am amazed at the tender care of the Holy Spirit to guide our planning efforts to focus April 2020 on how we can be assured of God’s Presence to us despite the loss of physically receiving and being with our Lord Jesus Christ who is truly with us Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist.

Seeing God’s Presence

The Friday I heard Sunday Masses were being cancelled, I became very upset. I am a daily communicant and have formed a habit of placing myself in the Presence of God in Eucharistic Adoration for at least 30 minutes either before or after Mass. I use my time in God’s Presence to help me draw closer to Him, to more clearly hear Him speak to me, and to bear Him company in gratitude for His Goodness and in atonement for all the years I dismissed Him.

I cried to my spiritual director by text message, and I cried to our Blessed Mother Mary in prayer. Both gave me the same assurance, “God is in charge.”

I have been meditating on this ever since, and have witnessed so many signs of how God has in no way left me:

• I receive him into my heart through the Church-honored, Spiritual Communion Prayer* while participating at daily online Masses.
• I hear him speak through his Word when I mediate on the daily Mass readings.
• I adore Jesus by enfolding into my daily Rosary my desire to be present to him since I know Jesus and Mary are joined at the heart and cannot be separated. If I am with her, then I am with him!

This time in isolation and social distancing has also given more time for contemplation; to wonder about higher, spiritual things since the distractions from driving, running errands, meetings, etc., have paused.

For instance, since we just celebrated Palm Sunday, I am contemplating the throngs of thousands who followed Jesus. I think about how the many people whom Jesus forgave, freed, healed and brought back to life in the three years of his ministry will now fall away as he enters his Passion to die alone for us on Good Friday.

Having Hope

I imagine Mary and Jesus meeting at the Fourth Station of the Cross:

• Did she wonder where all his followers were?
• Did she wonder why the Father was allowing this?

I, too, wonder. I imagine Mary, who had to learn from Jesus how to accept all in obedience and faith, hoping against hope, receive in her Son’s eyes the same assurance she gave me, “God is in charge.”

I pray for a miracle that I will be at my church worshiping and physically receiving our Lord Jesus in the Eucharist with my pastor and fellow parishioners at the Holy Mass of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday. I know, however, that when Jesus rose that first Easter morning, it was only St. Mary Magdalene there to greet him (cf. John 20:1).

And yet, I have hope!

For Scripture tells us that for the next 40 days after Easter… Jesus appeared to many (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:5-7), and three thousand were baptized and came into the Church on Pentecost Sunday (cf. Acts 2:1-41). Our Pentecost Sunday falls on May 31, 2020.

We do not know what the future holds, but praise God we do know this: our Lord always finds ways to make Himself Present to us… and God is in charge!

*Spiritual Communion Prayer
My Jesus, I believe that you are present in the most Blessed Sacrament. I love You above all things and I desire to receive You into my soul. Since I cannot now receive You sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace You as if You were already there and unite myself wholly to You. Never permit me to be separated from You. Amen.

Nan Balfour is a grateful Catholic whose greatest desire is to make our Lord Jesus more loved. She seeks to accomplish this through her vocation to womanhood, marriage, motherhood and as a writer, speaker and events coordinator for Pilgrim Center of Hope.

Answering Christ’s call, Pilgrim Center of Hope guides people to encounter Him so as to live in hope, as pilgrims in daily life. See what’s happening & let us journey with you! Visit PilgrimCenterOfHope.org.