EASTER

The Beauty and Truth of the Catholic Church
Vol. IV
B. Herder, St. Louis, MO, 1816

Fr. Edward Jones
With Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat, 1916

Sermon III:
The Omnipresence of God

"For in Him we live, and move, and are."-----ACTS 17, 28

We have thus far considered the eternity of God, His spiritual essence and His perfections. These three attributes of God naturally lead to another attribute of God which moves us to a new reverence and adoration of the infinite God. If the eternity of God is nothing else than His unchangeable, majestic presence by which everything is present to Him since the creation of the world; if secondly God is a Spirit Who knows no measure and no place like bodily substances, and if God, thirdly, embraces in Himself all the perfections found in creatures in an infinite degree-----it follows also that God is omnipresent in the whole creation. "In Him we live, move and are."

Everything is preserved in its life and existence by God, everything exists by virtue of His power. In the whole world there is no place which the eternal God does not fill, no boundaries which limit Him; He is omnipresent. God Himself gives us a sublime picture of this when He says: "Heaven is My throne and the earth My footstool" [Isaias 66, 1]. And yet the earth, this footstool of God, has a surface of nine millions of square miles and millions of stars sparkle like diamonds around the throne of God in Heaven, and these are mostly greater than this footstool, than the earth! God fills and preserves everything with His presence. The soul of man is a weak picture of this, which as an image of God is present everywhere in the body and preserves its life and its movements, for with its thoughts it hastens with the speed of lightning through the spaces of earth and can place itself now here and now elsewhere in its imagination. This latter presence of the soul is, to be sure, only an imaginary one; with God, however, it is real and substantial.

We will therefore, my beloved, meditate today on the omnipresence of God in the universe. Lend your ears to this meditation, and I will begin with the beautiful expression:

O Jesus, assist us with Thy grace!

1. God is really present everywhere; so that He fills Heaven and earth, as God Himself asks through His Prophet Jeremias: "Shall a man be hid in secret places, and I not see him, sayeth the Lord? Do not I fill heaven and earth, sayeth the Lord?" [Jer. 23, 24] Or, as the Book of Wisdom says [1, 7]: "For the spirit of the Lord hath filled the whole world: and that which containeth all things, hath knowledge of the voice." There is no place either in Heaven or on earth where God is not, and since He is a Pure Spirit He penetrates everything and is in everything. He is in the altitudes of Heaven, in the depths of the sea, in the bowels of the earth and wherever we go we are in God: "In Him we live, move and are." For this reason the holy King David, feeling, as it were, the immensity and the omnipresence of God, exclaims: "Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? or whither shall I fly from Thy face? If I ascend into Heaven, Thou art there: if I descend into Hell, Thou art present. If I take my wings early in the morning, and dwell in the uttennost parts of the sea: even there also shall Thy hand lead me: and Thy right hand shall hold me" [Ps. 138, 7-10]. What consideration, therefore, is more suitable for the knowledge of God, for the admiration of His infinitude, and for the joy over His greatness than the meditation on His omnipresence? The Prophet Baruch exclaims: "O Israel, how great is the house of God, and how vast is the place of his possession! It is great, and hath no end: it is high and immense" [Bar. 24, 25]. "Heaven is His throne and the earth is His footstool" [Isaias 66, 1].

But how, my beloved, is God everywhere present in all His creatures? He is everywhere present by His Substance or Nature; secondly by His omnipresence and thirdly by His omnipotence. God is, first, everywhere present by His Substance or Nature. Wherever we may be, there God is truly and really: "In Him we live, move and are." Everywhere is His whole, indivisible Godhead, His goodness and love, His mercy and justice, His wisdom and omnipotence, and all the greatness and perfection of His Divine Nature. God is everywhere the same as He is in Heaven, the same, Who created the earth and governs it. If our eyes would be opened we would behold Him here everywhere, and be blessed in this vision. For the Saints in Heaven are happy only because they behold God, and God permits Himself to be seen by them in Heaven and not everywhere, because the blessed cannot be everywhere, and Heaven, not the earth, according to the will of God is the dwelling-place of the blessed.

2. God is, secondly, everywhere present in all created things by His knowledge, in as much as He sees everything and knows what transpires in them, without the least thing being hidden from Him. God is not present by His omniscience as, for instance, a man in a dark place, where he does not see what transpires around him; neither is He present like the soul in the body, which does not see the interior organism of the body; but God is so present, that from the smallest creature up to the greatest, from the smallest worm up to the sun, He knows everything and sees everything. No voice, no sigh, no pain and no complaints of animals escape Him. Or does He not hear the cry of the young robin and the roar of the hungry lion? He clothes the lilies of the fields and is mindful of the sparrow on the roof. There are no sufferings and miseries, no struggles and temptations, no thoughts and no desires, no word and no sin, not the least good or bad in man that remains hidden from Him. Everything is bright and open before Him as the brightest light in open day. "The eyes of the Lord in every place behold the good and evil" [Prov. 15, 3]. Overpowered by this thought the holy King David exclaims: "Whither shall I go from Thy spirit, or whither shall I fly from Thy face?" [Ps. 138, 7]

3. God is, thirdly, everywhere and in every creature present by His omnipotence. He not only sees and knows what takes place in the creatures, but He gives to them also existence, life and strength, and preserves them as long as His wisdom has determined the duration of the existence for each creature. "In Him we live, move and are." Whatever life we notice even in the smallest creatures, they live only because God in them preserves life by His omnipresent omnipotence. "In Him we live." Whatever movements we see in the smallest insect, it makes only because God gives it motion. "In Him we move." Whatever existence the most insignificant things have, they have only because God preserves the existence of creatures by His omnipresent omnipotence. "In Him we are." If God would only for a moment withdraw His omnipotent presence from them and us and all creatures, we and everything with us would sink again into nothingness from which He has brought us and everything forth. Hence King David says in his praise of God: "All expect of Thee that Thou give them food in season. What Thou givest to them they shall gather up: when Thou openest Thy hand, they shall be filled with good. But if Thou turnest away Thy face, they shall be troubled: Thou shalt take away their breath, and they shall fail, and shall return to their dust" [Ps. 103, 27-29].

God is, therefore, everywhere and in all creatures present with His substance, omniscience and omnipotence. As we can conclude from the exterior and visible of man his interior and invisible, his soul, which communicates to the body its being, life and movement, so also we can penetrate with the eye of faith the whole creation and recognize in it the omnipresence of God Who gives and preserves to everything its existence, life and movement. "In Him we live, move and are." But what then are the fruits which we should draw from the meditation on the presence of God in the universe? It is admiration, adoration of God and a greater love and confidence in Him. "For by the greatness of the beauty, and of the creatures the Creator of them may be seen as to be known thereby" [Wisdom, 13, 5]. But it is only given to him who believes in God and loves Him from the depths of his heart, to recognize his Creator in the universe and to love Him all the more. The sun may cast its radiant effulgence through the heavens, the moon may pour out its rays of purest silver, the stars may rejoice and in the dancing sheen of their beams hold their nightly feast to the honor and glory of God-----if the soul is not united with the eye, if by sin it is turned away from God, if it is held captive by love for the creature and is brought to the last straits by a life of indifference, then all this splendor, all this knowledge is hidden to men. Then the words of the Apostle find their accomplishment: "For the invisible things of Him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; His eternal power also, and Divinity: so that they are inexcusable. Because that, when they knew God they had not glorified Him as God, or given thanks; but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened" [Rom. 1, 20, 21].

Creation is for him who has learned to pray and to love, an open prayer book in which he learns to know the greatness and omnipotence of God, His beauty and goodness. The heavens recount for him the praise of God and the firmament declares to him the works of His hands. There is no speech, no word of creatures that He does not hear. What the starry hosts in heaven recount in tongues of flame, what the ocean and the depths of the earth and its mountains proclaim, what the rays of the sun and the noises of the storms, what the blossoms of spring, and what the hail that destroys them, or the icy breath of the frost that kills them, what the lilies of the fields, the sparrow on the housetop, yes, what the smallest worm proclaims-----everything that exists, if rightly read and understood, is also a revelation of what God has done: in the days gone by; in them is written the presence, wisdom and providence of God, but also His chastising justice. The longing hope and waiting of creatures is also a sermon which opens up the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, since it speaks of blessing and cursing, of sin and redemption, of death and resurrection.

<> But the presence of God in the universe teaches us more than this. For Whom do you believe has the earth with its millions of creatures been created? Perhaps only for us? Just as little as a beautiful garden is made for the sake of the gardener, but for his sake who planned and made it-----just as little is the earth made only for our sake. We men, indeed, dwell on earth and live from its gifts, rejoice in its beauty, exercise our intelligence and our mind on it, and it becomes to us as St. Augustine remarks a ladder by which we can climb to its and our Creator, but it is created really and principally for the glorification of God. How many thousands of flowers blossom yearly, which the eye of man does not see nor make use of? For whom do these flowers bloom so beautifully? For the glorification of the omnipresent God. Thus they have perfectly reached their destiny even if they are not made into a bridal wreath, or used for medicinal purposes. How many pearls lie hidden in the depths of the sea; how many diamonds and precious metals are hidden in the cliffs of the mountains which no one knows of or can use? How many thousands of animals are there which are useless to us, yes, even injurious? Did God's wisdom perhaps err in their creation? Do they exist for nothing? No, they are not in existence for our sake but for the glorification of the omnipresent God, and herewith they have reached their first and highest object.

Just as in Heaven the pure spirits offer to God a sacrifice of praise: "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God of hosts;" just as we have a holy sacrifice of praise in the Sacrifice of the Altar,-----so also stammers the earth by the mouth of the millions of its children, animate and inanimate creatures-----it offers to God a sacrifice of praise. The holy King David enthusiastically exclaims: "Praise ye Him, O sun and moon: praise Him, all ye stars and light. Praise Him, ye heavens of heavens: praise Him, ye mountains and hills, fruitful trees and cedars: beasts and cattle: serpents and feathered fowls: praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons and ye deeps: fire, hail, snow, ice, stonny winds which fulfill his word" [Ps. 148].

Therefore we read also:

"Lord our Lord, how wonderful is Thy name upon the whole earth." Yes, the whole earth is a temple of the omnipresent God, Heaven is the canopy, every mountain and hill an altar, every tree a candelabrum, the sun is the light, and all creatures are the choir that sing the praises of God. There man stands, poor and sinful, far smaller than the little worm that he treads on, or than the withered leaf that blows past him. The worm dies not because of its own guilt; the leaf does not fall from the tree by its own fault, but because it has served its purpose and reached its term. But thou, O man, thou hast fallen away from God by thy own guilt, withered away from Him in Whom alone there is true life! Thou diest by thy own guilt! O man, who art thou? O man, who dost continue to live in sin, who art thou, that thou hast abandoned God? Who art thou, that thou hast so terribly mistaken the object of thy existence, and instead of living in love and for the praise of the all-present God, scornest Him constantly by the transgression of His commandments and by the desecration of His day? And yet if tears and contrition and a true conversion to God follow after a sinful, godless life -----if a real conversion to God in Whom we alone live, and move and can exist follows, then there is forced from the soul the Kyrie Eleison, Lord have mercy on me! followed by the Gloria in excelsis, because the soul wishes to again intone the praises of God by its life and its words: "Lord, our Lord, wonderful is Thy name in the whole world."

<> May you also, my dearly beloved, faithfully fulfill your calling on earth for the honor and the praise of the omnipresent God! May you not by your own fault, by a godless life fall away from Him! It would bring to you no happiness! And even the smallest creature on the day of judgment would rise up against you, and by the faithful fulfillment of its calling condemn you. Well for us, if we have lived for the honor of God, for then our eyes will be opened, we shall see the omnipresent God Whose glory fills Heaven and earth, and this vision is our future bliss and the reward of the faithful fulfillment of our calling. Amen.

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