Holy Ground

Holy Ground

Deacon Jonathan  (12-15-2025)

I remember the first time that I was able to expose the Blessed Sacrament after ordination as I looked upon our Lord and the overwhelming presence of our Savior, kneeling in front of the altar, I realized I was truly on holy ground. The magnitude of being on holy ground, being so intimately close to the Son of God was overwhelming. Even now as I kneel before Him, the magnitude of this overwhelming presence, the Son of God made flesh who dwells among us compels me to bring myself back to His presence and remember that I am on holy ground. The very presence of the “Great I Am” in front of me, body, blood, soul and divinity, what a great honor it is to be that close to the living God. 

My wife and I have talked at great length about the Christian journey, what would it take for Christians to understand the fundamental idea about living a life on holy ground; Christ is calling us to be in His presence, understanding that a life in Christ is lived on holy ground. A great deal of our lives are spent not understanding how to live this life, let alone how to find the path to follow. We get carried away in the things of this life; money, jobs, sports, school, relationships, Facebook, X, and a million other things that carry us away from the path that God wants us to follow. Most of the time we don’t even realize what’s happening until we’ve drifted so far that we don’t know how to get back to the life that we have been called to. As St. Teresa of Avila says, “It is a shame and unfortunate that through our fault we don’t understand ourselves or know who we are. Thus there are souls so ill and so accustomed to being involved in external matters that there is no remedy, nor does it seem that they can enter into themselves. If these souls do not strive to understand and cure their great misery, they will be changed into statues of salt, unable to turn their heads to look at themselves, just as Lot’s wife was changed for having turned her head.” (The Interior Castle, Ch1,Ph2 and 6)  We hear the voice of God like the wind. We don't know where it comes from or where it is going, all we know is that it is just blowing. Stop, allow God’s breath to move into the depths of our soul and allow him to give us the understanding of who we are. Listen to that still small voice, then you will know how to find the interior depths of the soul. So often we turn our heads to look at what we left behind or what we are missing, the things of this world. Lot’s wife looked back and longed for those things that she had left behind. Let us turn aside to see why the bush is burning and being consumed, not to long for the things of this world. As a people of God we don’t know how to stop or slow down, not stopping is often our biggest problem; It’s in the stopping that the change we expect or desire is brought about in our lives. Moses' life is a perfect example of this: being raised by Pharaoh’s daughter, killing an Egyptian, tending the sheep of his father-in-law in the desert, of all this it was as a shepherd, the low point of his life, that he received the calling from God. We read in Exodus 3:1-6 “Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness and came to Mount Horeb,[a] the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. 3 Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight and see why the bush is not burned up.” 4 When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 5 Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6 He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.” (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition)

Delving into the story of Moses, we understand that God did not call Moses in Egypt or even in his father-in-law’s compound, he was beyond the wilderness at the base of the mountain of God, Horeb. It is always in the solitude of the desert that God comes to us and speaks. He is there waiting for us and watching to see if we turn to Him, waiting to tell us to remove the dirt and dust of this world from our feet, for He has brought us to a place of holy ground. Like Elijah, we hear him in a cave, in the wilderness, in a still small voice, that we fall to the ground knowing that this is God's voice. Moses and Elijah were both running from what they perceived was a disaster, hiding in the desert. They both were called to the mountain of God, they both heard his voice and fell to the ground and would not look at the face of God. God then called them to go back to the places that they had run from, not as the same people, but empowered with the call of God, the great “I am.” This is the place that God wants to meet us, and if we would just allow Him to wash our feet–all the grit, dirt and filth of this world–we too could stand on holy ground. We could be brought out of the wilderness into a new life, living out the call of God, with the power of the great “I am.” It was beyond just doing God's will or living God's will, we truly become one with God's will. “I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me.” (Galatians 2:19,20)