I truly believe that Eastern Spirituality is based on a belief that God is love and that God, as community of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, wishes to give Himself to us. True love is always about giving oneself to the other. True love is expressed through the gift of self to the beloved. Jesus is God’s gift of Himself to us through the Holy Spirit. We recognize this gift through faith. St. Paul wrote to the Romans: The love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us. In the 2nd century Irenaeus said in this way: Through God’s two hands, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit we are touched by God.

So the spirituality of the East calls us to become attuned to this reality of God touching us. It means that we develop a sense of awareness of how God is present in our lives.

If Jesus promised that He and the Father would come and dwell within us, as St. John wrote, why should we not experience that living presence? If, as St. John records in his Gospel, that     Jesus taught that eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent, why should it be so extraordinary to experience such knowledge: God   loving us through the   perfect gift of Himself as a triune community?

This all presupposes, however, that we have opened ourselves to the presence of God. It also means having a true openness to life itself and all that life is able to teach us. It means that we realize that life is a gift, given to us out of love, as a means of helping us come to a deep and lasting understanding of God’s presence within us.

This also means, however, that we must not allow ourselves to get so caught up in worldly things that we   cannot recognize God’s presence.