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Many centuries ago, a Hebrew poet wrote a psalm that begins with the line: “How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, mighty God.”  He said that concerning the temple which King Solomon built in Jerusalem.  To him it was the most beautiful and the most sacred place on earth.  It was the house where God lived.  To visit the temple was to be in the very presence of the Lord.

But that beautiful and sacred building is no longer there.  It was first destroyed in 586 BC by the invading armies of Babylon.  Some seventy years later, it was rebuilt.  Then in 70 AD, it was finally destroyed by the Romans and has never again been rebuilt.  So that leaves us with a very important question: Where does God now live?

I heard about a little child who had obviously been pondering this same mystery.  One day he asked, “Mom, where is God?”  The mother replied, “Darling, God is everywhere.”  The little child thought about that for a moment and then said, “But I want Him to be somewhere.”

My guess is that most of us feel the same way about God.  It was not enough for us to think of God as a vague abstraction who is everywhere.  There are times when we want Him to be somewhere, so we can go there and know that we are in His presence.”

That is why King Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem.  It was a place where people could meet with God.  That is also the reason that people built the beautiful churches of Annunciation and Our Lady of Fatima.  In our minds, we know that God cannot be confined to any one place, however beautiful it may be and however sacred it may seem.  It is impossible to localize the Infinite God, who by His very nature, must be everywhere.

In our minds, we know that.  But in our hearts, we nevertheless have a need for Him to be somewhere.  We want there to be a place in our community where we walk and talk a little more softly – a place where we walk and talk a little more softly – a place where, in a very special way, we sense the presence of Him who is always with us wherever we may be.

So with centuries of historical precedent, we call that building “the house of God” in our midst.  He really lives there.  And so to walk or to drive by our Churches is to be reminded of God’s presence in the world and in our community.  And to enter the Church is to feel His presence.  From personal experience we know what the psalmist meant when he said, “How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, mighty God.”

For this reason we have tried our best to keep the doors of our Church opened for most of the day.  Our Church doors remain open to anyone who needs to be in the “house of God”.  What a wonderful truth, “How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, mighty God.”

For this reason, we encourage our parish families to bring the family often to the “house of God” – to the Church of Annunciation or Our Lady of Fatima.  What a wonderful truth for the children to learn!  But they will never know it unless we bring the children to the “house of God”.  What difference it will make as we present our children & grandchildren to God’s dwelling in our midst!