The “sacrament of the present moment” is precisely that: it is a sacrament because it is the place of encounter with God. We encounter God in the here and now and nowhere else. There is no such thing as the past or the future – past and future are “mental constructs” that we learn in order to understand our experience. But they are not real. The only thing that is real is the present moment. And it is right here, right now, where we meet God.

The problem is that most of us don’t live in the present moment. We are either stuck in the past with guilt and sentimentality or we are stuck in the future with worry and anxiety. And I suspect that is why Jesus continually challenged us to live in the present. He reminds us that the only way to live in the present is to be sensitive to and actually experience what our 5 senses are experiencing. “Let those who have ears, let them hear!” “Look at the birds of the air!”

And elsewhere in Scripture, we are reminded to “taste and see how good the Lord is!” So what might the sacrament of the present moment look like in a person’s life? It looks like exactly where the person is right now – and hopefully the person is “living in the present moment” by actually experiencing what’s going on right now. This is where God comes to us. Those who live in and experience the present moment are experiencing a divine sacrament for, as Paul reminds us, “In God we live and more and have our being.” God is like the air we breathe – and those who live in the here-and-now, take off their shoes like Moses before the burning bush.

Taken from an interview with Albert Haase, the author of “Coming Home To Your True Self” which expores this concept. Note that I have not read this book, I just loved Haase’s comments about the present moment.

May we all encounter God and live with Him in the present.