One need not go to Jerusalem, Lourdes or Fatima to find God and discover his presence among us. Solomon realized this when he offered his prayer at the dedication of the Temple he built for God to dwell in: “If the highest heavens cannot contain you, my God,” Solomon prayed, “how much less this Temple that I have built.”

God is everywhere in his creation, for all things come from God and bear his creative presence. All things are sacred. God is present in the Book of Sacred Scripture; we know this for ultimately he is the author of Scripture. But is he not the author of all the books that men and women publish, of all the music they compose?

All things are sacred. The ground we stand and walk on today is holy ground, the air we breathe is the breath of God, the sunrise and sunset we delight in, he paints. Simple bread and ordinary wine are holy even before they become food and drink for eternity, before they re-create in our midst the Christian Passover. All we touch today and use are hallowed things.

God is not and cannot be limited. We need only set free the senses of our souls to taste and feel and smell and hear and perceive the spiritual reality embedded in the material world in the midst of which we live.