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P R E S E N C E

What does it mean to be present

To be prayerfully present means to be enabled by the Spirit because of God s presence with us to be present to God to Presence to Love to Mystery to myself to others to what is to what is needful or called for or essential in God

To be at home with in communion in solidarity with there for or with God self others in the moment immediate in time to grace patient turned inward given to absorbed by simple centered whole To NOT be away wandering lost absent separated from distant unsupportive unavailable physically emotionally spiritually absorbed or dominated by the past or the future hurried hurrying

To be willing responsive expectant trusting free detached receptive open empty poor hungry alert and awake perceptive aware available accessible welcoming accepting vulnerable appreciative grateful To NOT be turned away from and to other people or things Withholding self absorbed unsupportive unavailable physically emotionally spiritually simplistic complicated fragmented willful controlling manipulative trying hard

What Does It Mean to Be Present to God on behalf of Another to practice intercessory presence to be present to God on behalf of another to be with the other in the con dence that God will meet them where and as they are to allow God to pray God s own prayer for another in you or through you in silence or in words to o er another to God s care and God s prayer in wordless and frequently imageless prayer to hold another in God s presence with the expectation that God knows what is needed and will be with them and do for them what is best to carry another in your own heart into God s presence to welcome another into your own heart believing that God will be present to meet them

What Does It Mean to Be Present to God on behalf of the World to practice intercessory presence Contemplative prayer for the kingdom is intercessory presence It is being simultaneously present through prayer in a way that transcends time and space to God to the person who su ers that God has given me to love and to the reality that brings that person death bondage and diminishment in the light of God s life giving love and power which raised Jesus Christ from the dead and guarantees the ful llment of God s reign in the world

What do we mean by PRESENCE

GOD S PRESENCE TO US God with and for us as immanence incarnation and revelation God s nearness analogous being and involvement with God s creation with us as persons in the image of God and with the world as an expression of self giving love God s freely chosen capacity to be known in and through human consciousness and de nitively as the God man Jesus Christ

OUR PRESENCE TO GOD Our Spirit empowered capacity to receive and know God with us Our voluntary choice to be present to God to self and to the other as persons and created reality who re ect who and how God is Our intentional practice of consciousness or awareness of God s evident nearness involvement care and self gifting in and among persons and in and through all created reality Our trust in the absence of divine disclosure

OUR PRESENCE TO GOD We call this capacity choice intentional practice and trust in the absence of perceptible signs contemplative prayer and practicing the presence of God

PRESENCE IS spontaneous experience a perception and interpretation of reality intentional practice and developing capacity nurtured by noticing presence re ecting on presence responding to presence discerning the experience and outcome of presence

PRESENCE IS a capacity and a possibility that is realized in an engagement with reality and an encounter with the Real received rst and nally as a gift