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23 January 2026 Inner Presence of God

Welcome

Opening Prayer

Dear God, thank you for Jesus’s actions in the world, for His peace, compassion and kindness. Please help us to be close to you in prayer and contemplation. Please show us how to hold you in our hearts throughout the day in every moment. Dear Lord let this new year be a year where peace grasps the world. ‘And they will beat their swords into plows, and their spears into knives for cutting vines. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and they will not learn about war anymore.’ (Isaiah 2:4) Please Lord, we pray for peace. Amen

 

Reflections

At the Home of Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38-42)

 

‘As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

 

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”’

 

The story of Martha and Mary is often coupled with the question ‘Are you a Mary or a Martha?’ and I am sure many of you can identify with both of these women. Are you a Martha or a Mary?

 

Why is Mary doing the right thing by not helping? Perhaps we are looking through the eyes of our own culture where we are rewarded for hard work and admonished for laziness.

 

Martha is no doubt a ‘server’ – her gift is in the preparing and serving of food. But we see her criticising Mary and even accusing Jesus of not caring. Martha is not truly present with Jesus.  She has got her priorities wrong by focusing exclusively on earthly things.

 

Luke is emphasising a radical change from self-sufficiency to the obedience to Christ. Martha wanted to be in control. With God we must defer control to God Himself. Martha perhaps needed to realise that her value is not in what she does but who she is – that is, a child of God

 

In her book ‘The Deepest Belonging’, Kara Root says:

“My grandfather was famous in our family for being able to “fit 10 lbs in a 5 lb box.” I inherited and honed this trait, and for much of my teenage and adult life I was a proud multitasker. I knew how to pack more things into less time, to wow people with my ability to accomplish. But I slowly began to discover that while I could competently fit 10 lbs in a 5 lb box, I didn’t know how to fit 5 lbs. in a 5 lb. box. And 4 lbs. would have been impossible.

 

She continues ‘I didn’t have any margins, any room, any rest.’

‘I could do many things at once, but I could not do just one thing. I was ignoring the perimeters, boundaries and limits God has given me. I was packing so much into my life and moving so fast, that I was not receiving my life as a gift to receive and enjoy, but turning my life into a task to accomplish.’

 

On a personal note it has seemed that I have been a bit of a Martha all my life and can very much relate to what Kara Root is saying. Until I found Christ, I had a ‘God shaped hole in my heart’ that I tried to fill with earthly matters.

 

In the 17th century Mathematician Pascal referred to this God shaped hole as an infinite abyss which ‘can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself’ And earlier at the end of the 5th century, Augustine in his Confessions stated, “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are rest-less till they find their rest in you.”

 

‘To be in your presence’ by Noel Richards.

“To be in your presence,

to sit at your feet,

where your love surrounds me

and makes me complete

This is my desire, O Lord, this is my desire.

……. To rest in Your presence,

Not rushing away;

To cherish each moment,

Here I would stay.’

 

A question - How do you rest in God?

 

In his book the Practice of the Presence of God, Brother Lawrence states that

“..his prayer was nothing else but a sense of the presence of GOD, his soul being at that time insensible to everything but Divine love: and that when the appointed times of prayer were past, he found no difference, because he still continued with GOD, praising and blessing Him with all his might, so that he passed his life in continual joy;...”

Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

 

Brother Lawrence was a 17c French Carmelite lay brother, known for his ability to maintain constant awareness of God in everyday tasks. He transformed work into prayer.  He experienced a powerful conversion after seeing a bare tree in winter, realising God's providence and presence, which led to a lifelong focus on loving God in every moment. He taught that there's no division between secular work and prayer; all tasks, like peeling potatoes or mending shoes, can become acts of worship.  He found profound peace and wisdom in simplicity and humility, becoming a beloved spiritual guide within his monastery.

 

Interestingly there are parallels in Buddhism and Mindfulness. These seek to maintain mindfulness and living in the present throughout everyday life. These are the same aims involved in Christian oneness with God – living in the present, emptying one’s mind and opening our whole being to God.

 

Introduction to Silence

 

Blessing

For presence

Awaken to the mystery of being here and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.

Have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.

Receive encouragement when new frontiers beckon.

Respond to the call of your gift and the courage to follow its path.

Let the flame of anger free you of all falsity.

May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame.

May anxiety never linger about you.

May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of soul.

Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.

Be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.

May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.

O'Donohue, John. Benedictus: A Book Of Blessings (p. 55). Transworld. Kindle Edition.

 

Thoughts to ponder:

 

“All the great religions, at least at the mature level, recognize that we need a different set of eyes to read, to understand spiritual realities…If we approach spiritual realities with the same Mexican jumping bean mind that we approach our everyday life, we are not going very far or seeing very much.”

 

“God refuses to be known by the intellect. God only allows himself to be loved by the heart.”

St John of the Cross

 

‘Being still has been a necessary part of my walk. Stillness, I should add, is not for me the same as emptiness. While the waters of the pond might be still on the surface, there is much life moving within. Life is within. Love is within!’

 

‘When I am still I do not empty myself. I would rather be filled with love than have nothing within. And being still allows for this to happen, or rather being still allows for you and I to notice that this has happened already. The love is there within us, even now. Yet sometimes the waves of life rage so incessantly that it is difficult to see or feel that love.’ 

Chaplain Charles Lattimore Howard, https://cac.org/daily-meditations/the-power-of-stillness/  accessed 2 Aug 2025

 

‘Inaction sometimes is the greatest action we can take. Stillness is sometimes the most important move we can make.’

Charles Lattimore Howard, Pond River Ocean Rain

 

‘Silence is helpful, but you don’t need it in order to find stillness. Even when there is noise, you can be aware of the stillness underneath the noise, of the space in which the noise arises. That is the inner space of pure awareness, consciousness itself.’

 

In a story from Benedicta Ward’s The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: “A brother came to Scetis to visit Abba Moses and asked him for a word. The old man said to him, ‘Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.’” But we don’t have to have a cell, and we don’t have to run away from the responsibilities of an active life, to experience solitude and silence. Amma Syncletica said, “There are many who live in the mountains and behave as if they were in the town, and they are wasting their time. It is possible to be a solitary in one’s mind while living in a crowd, and it is possible for one who is a solitary to live in the crowd of [their] own thoughts.” 

The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection, trans. Benedicta Ward, rev. ed. (Cistercian Publications, 1984), 139 and 234

 

‘Solitude is a courageous encounter with our naked, most raw and real self, in the presence of pure love. Quite often this can happen right in the midst of human relationships and busy lives. 

 

“I cannot imagine how religious persons can live satisfied without the practice of the presence of GOD. For my part I keep myself retired with Him in the depth of centre of my soul as much as I can; and while I am so with Him I fear nothing; but the least turning from Him is insupportable.”

Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

 

“That the most excellent method he had found of going to GOD, was that of doing our common business without any view of pleasing men, and (as far as we are capable) purely for the love of GOD.”

Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

 

“That we need only to recognize GOD intimately present with us, to address ourselves to Him every moment, that we may beg His assistance for knowing His will in things doubtful, and for rightly performing those which we plainly see He requires of us, offering them to Him before we do them, and giving Him thanks when we have done.”

Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

 

“That we ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.”

Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

 

Probing the Darkness -  DARKNESS. IS IT JUST THE EMPTY, FRUITLESS TIME between dusk and dawn? The place of ignorance where we have no signs by which to steer our course? The measure of our own lack of enlightenment, our profound need of God? Do we see it more readily in others than in ourselves? Can we believe that God is also in the darkness with us, alongside us, perhaps especially in the times when we cannot see our own hand in front of our eyes? Can we recognize God as that unfailing presence that, usually, we can see only with the gift of hindsight? But things grow in the darkness: seeds, bulbs, dreams, babies. Can we trust that if we dare to probe the darkness we may discover things about ourselves that we might prefer not to know, but need to learn? Can we believe that the seeds of all we can become are already gestating in the darkness we would gladly deny? In the East, a new dawn waits just below the horizon.

Silf, Ms. Margaret. Compass Points: Meeting God Every Day at Every Turn (pp. 55-56). Loyola Press. Kindle Edition.


 

Our next meeting will be 10.30am on Friday 27 February at St Mary’s Plympton our theme is 'Lenten Reflection:

Brokenness and Hope in God’s World'

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