“I let Myself be easily found, because I am here and in you” (Inner Word).
The masters of spiritual life remind us again and again that we can find God within ourselves. And this is so because the Lord Himself assured us: “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (Jn 14:23).
This statement is essential to our spiritual life, for it means that if we live in a state of grace, we can find God always and everywhere. This is how we become “inner men” (cf. 2 Cor 4:16). In dialogue with God, we learn to distance ourselves from the many impressions and distractions that come our way. The more we cultivate our loving relationship with God, the more we will seek His closeness and communion with Him. However, we must be careful not to neglect this, lest what Meister Eckhart so aptly expresses happen to us: “God is always in us, but we are rarely at home.”
With this, our Father has already laid out a path for us for times of persecution, when the outward practice of religion and worship is restricted or even impossible. Since He Himself has established His temple in our hearts, we can worship Him there, and no one can prevent us from doing so. As the Father assures us, He allows Himself to be found easily because He is already there waiting for us. In this way, we can resist and preserve our faith even in difficult times.
However, it is important to cultivate our inner life even when there seem to be no external dangers, and not to begin doing so only when circumstances force us to.