In an age of noise, distraction, and spiritual confusion, many have forgotten the reality of God’s presence. They chase after visions, feelings, and signs, thinking that God must be summoned or provoked to appear. But the living God is not like the idols of the nations. He does not hide behind curtains of emotion or spectacle. He is not silent because He is absent, but because He is near—too near for those who have dulled their hearts with the world. The Apostolic Church, faithful to ancient teaching and the witness of the saints, confesses that God is always present. He upholds all things by His Word. He sees, knows, and acts in every moment. To forget this is not just ignorance—it is outright rebellion. To remember it is the beginning of wisdom, the root of repentance, and the path to life. What follows is not speculation or opinion. It is the testimony of the Bible, the teaching of the Fathers, and the lived experience of the Church throughout the ages.
The presence of God is not confined to sacred buildings or extraordinary visions. Our Scriptures teach us that the Lord is not distant from His creation. In Psalm 139:7–10, King David wrote: “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.” These are not poetic exaggerations. They are declarations of the all-encompassing reality of God’s being. He is not restrained by space or time, nor is His presence subject to human invocation or ritual. Whether in the heights of joy or the depths of suffering, He is there. In the battlefield and the monastery, in the market and the grave, He is not absent. To relegate God’s presence to a church building, or to suppose it appears only in rare spiritual ecstasies, is a form of idolatry. It is to make God into something manageable and predictable. But the God of Israel is not like the idols of the nations. He is the living God Yahweh, who appeared to Moses in a bush that burned and was not consumed (Exodus 3:2). He fills all things. This is why the Holy Church begins her prayers with the invocation: “O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, who art everywhere present and fillest all things…” Not some things—all things. If we believed this with the seriousness it demands, we would not live as though God were watching us from the edge of the world. We would tremble before His nearness.
God’s presence is not dependent on our feelings. Whether we sense Him or not, He is there. A man may walk through the desert and believe he is alone, but if his heart is seeking the Lord, then God is nearer than the air in his lungs. The danger of our age is that we have trained ourselves to ignore Him. Technology, entertainment, and the noise of modernity drown out the stillness in which God is often perceived. But even our ignorance does not diminish His presence. He is still sustaining the world by His will. He is still calling each man and woman to repentance, regardless of whether they listen. This truth should shape the way we live, especially in a world that forgets or denies Him. If God is present in all places and sees all things, then nothing is hidden from His sight. As the Apostle writes, “before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.” (Hebrews 4:13) This is not sentimental comfort; it is reality. It demands vigilance, repentance, and reverence. We do not wait for the presence of God to arrive. He is already here. The question is whether we have trained our hearts to behold Him, and whether we have cleansed our lives to be fit for His dwelling.
God’s presence is most fully revealed to us in the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the central event of all human history — not that man reached up to God, but that God stooped down to man. As the Apostle John wrote, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” (John 1:14) This is not a metaphor. The eternal Logos, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, truly took on flesh—bone, blood, soul, and mind—and was born of the Virgin Mary. He did not appear as a phantom, nor did He simply borrow human form. He became man in the fullest sense, while remaining fully God. The presence of God, once made known in fire and cloud, now walked among us with human feet. He did not remain in glory apart from us but humbled Himself to dwell among sinners. As the Apostle Paul writes, “he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself.” (Philippians 2:7–8) He did not come to a palace, but to a manger. He did not surround Himself with the righteous, but with tax collectors and harlots. In this humiliation, God revealed not weakness, but the strength of divine love. This was not a passing visit. The Incarnation is not a temporary arrangement. Christ remains forever both God and man. It is the permanent union of the divine and human natures in one Person. By this union, He has forever bound Himself to mankind.
Even after His Ascension, He did not leave us orphaned. He told His disciples, “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.” (John 14:18) That promise was fulfilled at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles in tongues of fire. From that moment, the Church became the dwelling place of God on earth. His presence did not depart, but was deepened. Christ abides in His Church through the Holy Spirit, guiding, sanctifying, and enlivening her. The Church is not an institution of men; it is the Body of Christ, animated by the life of God Himself. To enter the Church is not to join a religious club—it is to enter the life of the Holy Trinity.
The Holy Mysteries of the Church, especially the Divine Liturgy, are not symbolic acts but the real presence of God among His people. When the faithful gather around the Holy Table, Christ is not distant. He is not remembered like a figure from history. He is present—truly and wholly—in the Eucharist. As He said, “This is my body… This is my blood.” (Mark 14:22–24) These are not poetic phrases. They are literal declarations. The bread and wine, once offered, become the very Body and Blood of Christ, not by the work of man, but by the descent of the Holy Spirit. We do not imagine Christ present in the Liturgy. We receive Him. We commune with Him. We become, by grace, what He is by nature. This is the full reality of His presence with us—until the end of the age. Those who deny the real presence of Christ in the Holy Mysteries are not holding to the faith once delivered to the saints. They speak with the voice of heresy, reducing the sacred to symbols and empty rites. Such teachings are not new—they echo the errors of the gnostics and iconoclasts, who could not bear the truth that God became flesh and continues to dwell bodily in His Church. As St. Ignatius of Antioch warned, “They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ.” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans, 7) To reject this is to reject Christ Himself. Let the Church have nothing to do with such men unless they repent.
The presence of God is also made known in our conscience. Conscience is not an invention of philosophy or psychology—it is the echo of God’s voice within the soul of man. As St. Paul writes, “They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness.” (Romans 2:15) This inner voice does not speak in riddles. When a man sins, he knows it not because of societal norms or legal codes, but because he has grieved the living God. Every sin is a personal offence, not an abstract infraction. It is rebellion against the One who fashioned us and breathed life into our dust. When the Prophet Nathan stood before King David and declared, “You are the man!” (2 Samuel 12:7), it was not a prophet’s opinion but God’s judgement. David’s adultery and murder were not hidden, even though he thought he had covered his tracks. God saw. God judged. Yet even in His rebuke, God did not annihilate David. He offered repentance. This is how God acts toward the sinner. He does not abandon us in our filth, though He has every right to. Instead, He calls us out of it, not with the voice of flattery, but with the authority of a Father. And when we answer, He cleanses. Not lightly, not sentimentally, but thoroughly.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10) because it strips away illusions. It awakens us to His presence in our daily life. It does not mean terror in the way pagans fear capricious gods. It means standing in awe before the majesty and holiness of the One who sees all, judges all, and loves with severity. A man who fears God walks carefully, prays constantly, and repents quickly. He does not presume upon mercy, nor does he trivialise grace. His conscience remains sharp, not dulled by excuses or modern justifications. It is better to feel the sting of guilt than to fall into the sleep of indifference.
Christians must never live as though God were absent. That is the thinking of atheists and apostates. To live as though God does not see, does not care, or is not near, is a path to delusion and destruction. It is spiritual blindness. It leads to despair, licentiousness, and finally to death—not just of the body, but of the soul. He who walks in the fear of God walks in the light. He confesses, prays, fasts, and prepares himself to stand before the dread judgment seat of Christ. Not with presumption, not with arrogance, but with hope born of obedience.
We do not conjure God’s presence through emotion or noise. The modern world, intoxicated with entertainment and theatrical religion, imagines that volume and excitement are signs of divine activity. This is a delusion. God is not a spectacle to be summoned. He is not stirred by drums, lights, smoke machines or the noise of crowds. True piety does not depend on heightened emotion, which passes as quickly as it rises. Emotional manipulation is not prayer. It is a parody of worship. The Holy Church, faithful to the Apostolic tradition, rejects this frenzy. It is not godliness, but confusion. As the Apostle says, “God is a God not of disorder but of peace.” (1 Corinthians 14:33) The prophet Elijah learned this when he stood at Horeb. The wind tore the mountains, the earthquake shook the earth, and fire blazed—but the Lord was in none of them. Then came “a sound of sheer silence.” (1 Kings 19:12) It was there, in the stillness, that God spoke. This was not weakness—it was majesty. God does not compete with chaos. He reveals Himself where man is willing to be silent and to listen. This is why the Christian must cultivate stillness, both inward and outward. Without stillness, prayer is scattered and the soul remains agitated. The Fathers of the Church call this hesychia—a holy quiet in which the soul stands attentively before God. However, silence does not mean distance. It is not the silence of abandonment, but the silence of awe before God’s nearness. When the priest lifts the gifts, we do not shout or clap. We fall silent, because the King is present. It is the same silence that filled the disciples when they beheld Christ transfigured. They could not speak, for the glory of God had overtaken them. This silence is not emptiness. It is fullness. It is not loneliness. It is communion. The man who fears God knows that in silence, every breath is an offering and every heartbeat is a witness to the One who dwells within.
The Holy Church preserves this truth in her ascetic life, her reverent prayer, and her Holy Icons. The Church does not follow the fashions of the world, nor does she adapt her worship to please modern appetites. She keeps the silence of the desert fathers, the discipline of the saints, and the unchanging reverence of the Apostolic Tradition. Her prayers are not entertainment, but sacrifice. Her icons are not decorations, but windows into eternity. Before them, we do not invent God in our image. We behold the Word made flesh, the same yesterday, today, and forever. In a world ruled by noise and distraction, the Church stands as a bastion of stillness, because there—hidden from the world—God is present.
Let every soul be vigilant, for the Lord is near. Let us walk in His presence with fear, obedience, and hope.
May God bless you +
Fr. Charles
Bright Wednesday
Martyrs Terence and Pompeius and those with them
23 April 2025
