The Practice of the Presence of God

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Learn how to make God's presence a transformative part of your everyday life. Discover a personal story of surrender and devotion, with daily practices to help keep God at the center—perfect for those wanting to deepen their spiritual journey. This letter provides tips for inviting God's presence into daily life, minimizing distractions, and establishing a consistent relationship with the Divine.

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[00:00:01] Bryan Entzminger:

First letter since you desire so   earnestly that I should communicate to you the method by   which I arrived at that habitual sense of God's presence   which our Lord of His mercy has been pleased to   vouchsafe to me, I must tell you that it is with   great difficulty that I am prevailed on by your importunities.   And now I do it only upon the terms that you show my letter   to nobody. If I knew that you should let it be   seen, all the desires that I have for your advancement   would not be able to determine me to do it. The account   I can give you having found in many   books, different methods of going to God, and diverse   practices of the spiritual life, I thought this would   serve rather to puzzle me than facilitate what I sought after,   which was nothing but how to become holy gods.  

This made me resolve to give the all for the all.   So, after having given myself wholly to God that He might   take away my sin, I renounced, for the love of him,   everything that was not he, and I began to live   as if there was none but he and I in the   world. Sometimes I consider myself before him   as a poor criminal at the feet of his judge. At   other times I beheld him in my heart as my Father, as my   God. I worshipped him the oftenest that I could,   keeping my mind in his holy presence, and recalling it as   often as I found it wandered from him. I found no   small pain in this exercise, and yet I continued it,   notwithstanding all the difficulties that occurred, without troubling   or disquieting myself. When my mind had wandered involuntarily.  

I made this my business as much all the day long as   at the appointed times of prayer. For at all times,   every hour, every minute, even in the height of my business,   I drove away from my mind everything that was capable of interrupting   my thought of God. Such has been my common   practice ever since I entered into religion and though   I have done it very imperfectly, yet I have found great   advantages by it. These, I well know,   are to be imputed to the mere mercy and goodness of God,   because we can do nothing without him, and I still   less than any. But when we are faithful to keep ourselves   in his holy presence, and set him always before us,   this not only hinders our offending him, and doing anything that might   displease him, at least willfully, but it also begets   in us a holy freedom, and, if I may so speak, a   familiarity with God, wherewith we ask, and   that successfully the graces we stand in need of   in fine by often repeating these acts, they   become habitual and the presence of God   rendered as if it were natural to us. Give him thanks,   if you please, with me, for his great goodness toward me, which   I can never sufficiently admire, for the many   favors he has done to so miserable a sinner as I.  

May all things praise him. Amen. I   am in our Lord, Yours and the rest.