Do you "feel" God's presence?

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My husband and I have discussed this on and off. He is a practicing Catholic, goes to Mass, confession ect. we follow church teaching but he says he has never felt the presence of God. I have. I was wondering do you feel the presence of God and what does it feel like to you?
 
My brother recently returned to the Church. And one thing he noticed having first gone to some other Church’s was that in the Catholic Church he could feel a presence. He understood this to be the presence of God. The same way that you can sense when someone is near you and you can feel their presence. But more than this he felt a tremendous peace at times. He especially felt the presence of God when his sins were absolved.
I imagine there are millions of stories like his. Many far more spectacular too.

Yours in Jesus, Mary & Joseph,

John
 
i would say that we all have different manifestations of our relationships with God. some people ‘feel it’ alot more than others. some love God and obey Him, but don’t ‘sense’ His presence the way others do.

i’ve sensed His leading, His love, and His presence from time to time throughout my life. sometimes i sense Him, sometimes i do not.

fortunately we don’t have to rely on our senses for our relationship with Him. the catholic church does a great job of manifesting Jesus to us, in our olfactory (incense), taste (the eucharist), sight (the church, the cross, the body of Christ in our fellow believers and in the eucharist, etc), hearing (the words of the mass, the bells rung during transubstantiation, etc), and touch (our fellow believers, and the eucharist). in this, we see God.

sometimes we sense Him in our hearts. but not all do. just cuz we don’t ‘feel’ it doesn’t mean it’s not true.

one thing i might be concerned about would be if, throughout an entire life of being a catholic christian, you don’t see any of the fruits of the spirit manifest in your life - peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, love, joy, self control, etc - then that might be cause to reexamine our relationship with God, and see if there is something we might do to deepen our walk with Him.

grace and peace be with you.
 
On rare occassions I have felt the Lord’s presence. It usually comes at times when my prayer life becomes lacking. The experience leaves me shaken and renewed at the same time.
 
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rayne89:
My husband and I have discussed this on and off. He is a practicing Catholic, goes to Mass, confession ect. we follow church teaching but he says he has never felt the presence of God. I have. I was wondering do you feel the presence of God and what does it feel like to you?
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Dear friend

I have at times felt His Presence, though not all the time, but that doesn’t mean that He isn’t present all the time, as I know God is always with me whether I ‘feel’ it or not.

I have also seen and felt God’s presence in other people, in their words and in their actions.

I especially experience God’s presence in my heart when praying and before the Blessed Sacrament and at Holy Mass, especially Communion and this presence is always foremost peace and with a sense of love and joy. ‘My peace I leave, My peace I give you’

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa
 
Sister Teresa is right. Gods presence is always around us. Its us thats not aware of His presence. It all depends how close you draw towards Him. To me Gods presence is closest when Im in His Arms and resting my head against His Heart. How sweet is His annoiting. Jesus I love you. 😉
 
Dear Friends,

I at times feel His presence especially in front of the blessed Sacrament. I do have a hard time of always remembering His presence throughout the day, He’s always on my mind but I get caught up in my work at times or while I’m doing duties throughout the day I sometimes forget. I need to work on remembering His presence at every single moment in my day, I want to get to that point.

Someone taught me though, to use We, Us, throughout the day, every activity you do, whether it is cleaning house, or going to work or going shopping, whatever, say, Let us go do this Jesus, let us do that, let write this letter, etc, etc… I need to practice that more also.

Anyway, anyone else have ideas of how to remember His presence throughout the day?

Blessings
 
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jeffreedy789:
one thing i might be concerned about would be if, throughout an entire life of being a catholic christian, you don’t see any of the fruits of the spirit manifest in your life - peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, love, joy, self control, etc - then that might be cause to reexamine our relationship with God, and see if there is something we might do to deepen our walk with Him.

grace and peace be with you.
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My husband definately has the fruits of the spirit in his life. He is a recovered alcoholic, recovered from chronic depression, turned away from viewing porn- there is so much of what you listed in what has changed in him since he converted in '97. He has prayed to God to feel his presence but has not felt it, is it possible to not recoginize God’s presence?
 
Yes…the very first time I remember really feeling His Presence was when I made my First Holy Communion at 19 years old when I entered the Church…
 
I was once spending a special hour a day in prayer during Lent. Some time during the second week I was overpowered with the joy & love of God. It was a good feeling but so overpowering & uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to do with it, so I played a computer game, & sure enough that got rid of the feeling.

Sad, isn’t it? The only way I could feel comfortable again was to get rid of the feeling by distracting myself from God. It was a humbling experience in that I got a better understanding of what those in purgatory must be going through. Because of their sin they would be SO uncomfortable in the presence of the Lord that they must be purified. I guess I’ll be spending lots of time there, and there won’t be any computer games either to distract me.
 
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SPOKENWORD:
Hi Tru. How do you feel in Gods presence? Care to share? 🙂
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Dear Word,

Well… he loves me and in my limited way I love him back. But as to how I feel… I am not at liberty to share. But I can talk about where we can (collectively of course) experience God’s presence.
 
Dear AServantofGod,

That is very insightful of you and thank you for sharing it.

And I… I was such dork I didn’t even recognize it was God until much later.
 
not really, not as an emotion or sense perception, but I know He is near because of the unvarying testimony of scripture and of clouds of witnesses, that is good enough for me.
 
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tru_dvotion:
Dear Word,

Well… he loves me and in my limited way I love him back. But as to how I feel… I am not at liberty to share. But I can talk about where we can (collectively of course) experience God’s presence.
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Tru, Ill respect your feelings. How close will we allow the Lord to come to us? He is waiting for us.He wants to wrap His arms around us and pour out His Love. This is INTIMACY. All we have to do is surrender. Here I am Lord. 👍 God Bless You.
 
Yes Word,

You are right, I think the more we abandon ourselves to God the more we will feel His Presence, because the more we abandon ourselves and give up our wills the more united we will become to Him. Like you said we have to surrender to God. IT seems very difficult, to fight our flesh which is so heavy. We have to die to our self.

I also remember reading somewhere when we practice virtue, which is overcoming ourselves, for instance deciding to act with patience with people instead of impatience that is also remembering His presence.

In Christ,
Kaily
 
I don’t think I feel it at all. Don’t think I ever have. I keep hoping that someday I will, but this lack of a feeling or experience of God really troubles me at times, and shakes my desire and ability to adhere to the church’s teachings. Perhaps I am being tested, or being taught something (maybe not to be too analytical). I don’t know.
 
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