By Bishop Robert O’Neill

The spiritual journey is nothing if it is not a continual process of discovering the deepest reality of our lives.

Salvation, Jesus says, is not actually a matter of “getting into heaven”—a reward for a life of good behavior. It is instead something “at hand”—a divine and dynamic relationship with all that is divinely created and divinely connected already—here and now.

Think about it.

This kingdom—this way of being in relationship, of seeing and experiencing and responding to all of life—Jesus says is “at hand.” It is not “out there” or “over the far horizon.” It is, according to Jesus, a present, immediate, accessible realm in which absolute love reigns absolutely. This kingdom is limitless. It has no boundaries, and consequently, in this divine kingdom, there is no “in” or “out” just One who is Life—the One Love, as Paul would put it, who is “above all, and in all, and through all.”

Our life’s work—indeed the whole purpose of our spiritual practice and discipline—is both to uncover this gift that is hidden in the heart of life and, at the same time, to refuse steadfastly to lose sight of this reality even in the face of the overwhelming suffering and violence of our world. This is our work and our witness.