Where is God’s presence?

Why do we have favourite places, at home or out in the world, and why do we have physical places of worship? How is God’s presence to be found – in the bricks and mortar or in the people who make up worshipping communities? Today’s reflection on the daily mass readings with Fr Richard.

Readings for Monday on the 5th week of Ordinary Time (memorial of St Teilo) can be found here.

Do you have a favourite place? Perhaps it is a comfy old armchair in your home, where you like to settle down with a cuppa and relax. Maybe it is somewhere outside the home – a park where you feel at peace, or a busy cafe where you can connect with friends and family. The human instinct to adopt favourite places is due to many things. It can be about a feeling of safety and security, or peace and calm, or perhaps a special place is the repository of important memories. 

All of these human needs are surely at work in our tendency to create and maintain places set aside for prayer and worship, such as the church we are gathered in right now. In addition, of course, we hope and pray that here we will encounter God in a special and particular way, through word and sacrament. 

Our first reading today describes the dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem which King Solomon had built. The Ark of the Covenant, containing the tablets of the law, is placed in the Holy of Holies within the Temple. For the people of Israel, the Temple, with the Ark at its centre, was more than just a special and holy place – it represented God’s presence with his people. This is why its destruction at the hands of the Babylonians over 400 hundred years later was such a catastrophe for the nation.

Jesus often spoke of himself as the Temple – God’s presence now revealed not in a building but a person, God’s own Son. Today in the Gospel we see what that presence means when made human – he brings healing to those who are in need. Our church buildings are special and sacred, and we rightly love them and care for them. But they are not museums. They are to be places where God’s presence is shown today, not in bricks and mortar, but through his people carrying on the healing work of Jesus.

Mass today is in St Dyfrig & St Samson, Grangetown, at 6.30pm

If you’d like more resources for daily prayer then check out our Day By Day pages.