(The Nationalist, 12 May 2000)
There’s one job no engineer can do, and that’s build a bridge over a gap that isn’t there. But I think that’s what we often try to do in our life with God.
We sometimes think of, or imagine, God as being up there in the sky, looking down on us. Or perhaps we see him as far away at a distance looking at us from the outside.
I think it’s different from either of those. It would be nearer the truth, I believe, to think of God as being within us and all round us. Images that come to mind are of God being within us like our blood stream is. Or that God is all round us as the sea is if we swim under water.
Our job is not to build bridges to God but to recognize and accept that we are already in God by reason of our faith and baptism. We are in God and God is in us. ‘In him we live and move and have our being.’ (Acts 17.27)
And so also is it with prayer. We think of it as dialogue with God. But it is better, I believe, to see it as gladly and gratefully acknowledging the union which is already there between us and God. Union with God is not something to be achieved in the future but a reality that is already present in the here and now. As Jesus said in the Gospel, ‘The kingdom of God is within you.’ (Luke 17.21)