Recollection also makes us present to God, and to ourselves in Him. The desire to preserve the deepest movements of our soul for God alone, to direct them away from ourselves and from His creatures, and concentrate them entirely on the fulfillment of His will, makes us in a special way present to God. True, we are always present to Him Who sees all and keeps all things in existence by the very act that knows their existence. But we are more present to Him when we are aware of His nearness to us than when we ignore it. For then the presence is conscious and mutual: it is the presence of a
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