Anna was too filled with joy and wonder to sleep. This was the night for which her soul had prepared her these many years. She heard the celestial music of the saints and the rustle of angel wings. Love had chosen her for this wondrous experience, so she was unafraid. The time was close now, for she smelled the fragrance of roses around her. "Oh, blessed angels, I love my God with all my being."
Lord, am I such a pain in the neck? I see you everywhere, yet turn from your presence in the faces of my wife and children. I look for your face everywhere and then spit in your face -- in the faces of those you give me to love ... and in whom you offered your love for me again and again in a million imperfect ways every day. I turn from them if they aren't just so -- just perfect. Nevertheless, your quiet is finally growing in me ... I want to calm my restless feelings, Lord, and look deeply into the faces of my family and see you face to face as we talk during our meal.
To see the face of God in those you love and live with takes consistent commitment and concentration. It is the same contemplative act that one experiences in the stillness and silence of solitary prayer and adoration. It takes simultaneous attention to the "without" and the "within", to self and to other. It is a paradox, a simultaneous joining while remaining solitary and separate. It resembles the act of physical touching and loving. It is separate togetherness and oneness experienced separately at the instant it is shared.