7 Ways to Practice the Presence of God (Morning Coffee)
We'll look at 7 quotations from St. Josemaria Escriva's book The Way on how to practice the presence of God.
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Children... How they seek to behave worthily in the presence of their parents.
And the children of kings, in the presence of their father the king, how they seek to uphold the royal dignity!
And you? — Don't you realize that you are always in the presence of the great King, God, your Father?
266
Never make a decision without stopping to consider the matter in the presence of God.
267
We've got to be convinced that God is always near us. We live as though he were far away, in the heavens high above, and we forget that he is also continually by our side.
He is there like a loving Father. He loves each one of us more than all the mothers in the world can love their children — helping us, inspiring us, blessing... and forgiving.
How often we have misbehaved and then cleared the frowns from our parents' brows, telling them: I won't do it any more! — That same day, perhaps, we fall again... — And our father, with feigned harshness in his voice and serious face, reprimands us, while in his heart he is moved, realizing our weakness and thinking: poor child, how hard he tries to behave well!
We've got to be filled, to be imbued with the idea that our Father, and very much our Father, is God who is both near us and in heaven.
268
Get used to lifting your heart to God, in acts of thanksgiving, many times a day. Because he gives you this and that. Because you have been despised. Because you haven't what you need or because you have.
Because he made his Mother so beautiful, his Mother who is also your Mother. Because he created the sun and the moon and this animal and that plant. Because he made that man eloquent and you he left tongue-tied...
Thank him for everything, because everything is good.
269
Don't be so blind or so thoughtless as not to enter inside each Tabernacle when you glimpse the walls or spires of the houses of God. He is waiting for you.
Don't be so blind or so thoughtless as not to invoke Mary Immaculate with an ejaculation at least, whenever you pass near those places where you know that Christ is offended.
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As you make your way through the familiar streets of the city, have you never had the joy of discovering... another Tabernacle?
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A saying of a soul of prayer: in intentions, may Jesus be our aim; in affections, our Love; in conversation, our theme; in actions, our model.
