The Dwelling of the Holy Presence
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1.14
After a sweet and optimally deep sleep, you awake and before you have even opened your eyes, your mind is filled with the thought of Him and His holy name: Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Completely lifted by His grace, you rise up from where you were sleeping and fall down onto your knees in prayer, eager to speak to Him.
As you begin to pray, you become immediately aware of His closeness. You sense His holy presence and everything within you and around you feels right. You are alert, but not anxious. You are focused, but not tense. You are relaxed, but not lethargic.
Everything that you say to Him is exactly what you mean to say. There is seamless continuity between what is in your heart and the words that are coming out of your mouth. Each word that you utter sparks an association with another and your prayers effortlessly glide out of you like a river of warm and fragrant oil.
Although you are aware that you are experiencing something heavenly, you are completely conscious of your physical surroundings and are able to operate within them. Although you are aware that you have been transported into another realm, you are completely grounded in your body and your mind is working in the way that it normally does.
Your prayers are deep, rich and varied. Filled with desire for Him, your heart aches to tell Him how much you regret all that you have done to reject, destroy, dissipate and run away from the grace that He is, again, giving you, and you burn with the knowledge that you have repeatedly hurt Him, in different ways and for different reasons, between the moment that you first met Him and now.
Although moved by this potent sense of agonizing loss, which is at once painful whilst also piercingly sweet, you are completely at peace, filled with faith that every difficult thing that has happened in your life will be used by Him for His glory and for the manifestation and extension of His Kingdom.
Your heart is soft, tender and open to Him and His heart. The suprasensory movement of His Spirit moves your own, and you are aware that your heart could, at any moment, shatter, in response to the intensity of longing that you are feeling toward Him and the heavenly realm.
Your thoughts and emotions are quiet to the point of silence. You are in a tranquil state. Everything feels peaceful, balanced and still. Filled with gratitude to Him for all that He is, and for all that He has done for you and for the whole world, words of praise, worship and adoration flow out of you.
As well as offering up everything that is within you, and giving Him all the glory that you are suddenly aware that He deserves, intercessions begin to spill from your heart and you find yourself energized, rather than drained, by the process of praying for others.
Aware of all of those who are suffering and in need, you and your life start to become invisible, and you melt into your prayers, going deeper and deeper into the needs of others, aware that it is His prayers for each person that are being prayed through you.
This time of early prayer leaves you entirely satisfied, whilst also hungry for more. So alive and real is His presence, you zealously protect it, instinctively avoiding thinking, saying or doing anything that will make Him want to leave, as you then go about your day.
Intimately connected, prayers, both wordless and spoken, continue to ripple through your heart. Filled with His love, your heart feels as if it is overflowing with love for everyone and everything with whom and with which you come into contact.
The force of joy is so strong that you want to chat, laugh and play with all those around you, but eager to remain close to Him in the silent grace in which He is holding you, you allow it to instead run through you in a pure and unspoken stream as you go about your work, which you do with Him, through Him and for Him.
Amen +
Author of You Are Mine and Apocalypse, Sister Anastasia writes on the role of the ancient, ascetic Church in a rapidly changing, modern world.
Photo by Aditya Chache on Unsplash
Thank you, Sister Anastasia!!! What a profoundly beautiful way to share the powerful experience of communion with God, which I could not even have thought words would describe, but He gave you the ability to do it!!! I too have experienced this. Even and especially as a child, not raised with Christ spoken or thought of in our daily lives, but He is there, He is here, for the lost, alone and broken! Thank you for the reminder that His love overcame and overcomes all our turning away, and obliterates our shame with His mercy and compassion. This offering is such a gift to us. I sense, maybe, this is part of your new book. Thank you again and P.S, We saw baby yesterday on the ultrasound. Glory to God, baby is well and wriggling. A miracle!!!
Thanks for this one, Sister. There is a holy ache beneath these words, the kind that lingers long after the prayer has ended and the room has grown still again. This is how the Presence comes, not with spectacle but with the quiet weight of a love so total it feels both unbearable and tender as silk laid across a wound. The body remains, kneeling on wood or carpet or stone, but something unseen begins to stir within the blood itself, as if the molecules know they have been summoned.
This is both the scandal and the gift of the Incarnation: that the infinite would choose to pour itself, without reluctance, into vessels as fragile and trembling as ours. That a breath drawn in an early morning room could become liturgy. That regret could become offering. That longing could become prayer. Even the fear of losing Him, especially that fear, is transfigured into another place of meeting, another veil through which His presence leaks, slow and golden, into the aching chambers of the heart.