God’s kingdom is a presence, not a spectacle

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Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul, 13 November 2025
Thursday in the Thirty-Second Week of Ordinary Time, Year I
Wisdom 7:22-8:1     <*((((><  +  >><))))*>     Luke 17:20-25

Fill me with your Wisdom,
Lord that I may find
and experience you
within me; fill me with 
Wisdom, Lord, that I may be
"not baneful, loving the good,
keen, unhampered" 
(Wisdom 7:22) in realizing
and living your very presence
within me; fill me with Wisdom,
Lord, so I may not seek you
in spectacle but feel you more
in your presence.

Asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come, Jesus said in reply, “The coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce, ‘Look, here it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’ For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:20-21).

Guide me, Jesus
with your Holy Spirit
to be open and sensitive
with God's hidden ways of working
in our lives,
in our communities,
in our history;
let me continue to seek
God in all things
especially in my life where
the hidden presence of 
God's Kingdom is most felt
but often unnoticed
because it happens
in silence
even emptiness
"For Wisdom is mobile
beyond all motion,
and she penetrates
and pervades all things
by reason of her purity"
(Wisdom 7:24).

Help me realize
and treasure the reality
of God's kingdom 
not a spectacle 
like a dazzling show
the world so loved 
that is momentary and empty;
let me realize that 
God's kingdom is presence,
a movement of grace
after grace
after grace.
Amen.