We must remember that there are three ways in which God is present in the soul.

The first is His presence in essence, not in holy souls only, but in wretched and sinful souls as well, and also in all created things;

for it is by this presence that He gives life and being, and were it once withdrawn all things would return to nothing. This presence never fails in the soul.

The second is His presence by grace, whereby He dwells in the soul, pleased and satisfied with it.

This presence is not in all souls; for those who fall into mortal sin lose it, and no soul can know in a natural way whether it has it or not.

The third is His presence by spiritual affection. God is wont to show His presence in many devout souls in diverse ways, in refreshment, joy, and gladness;

yet this, like the others, is all secret, for He does not show Himself as He is, because the condition of our mortal life does not admit of it. Thus this prayer of the soul may be understood of any one of them:

“Reveal Your presence.”

Inasmuch as it is certain that God is ever present in the soul, at least in the first way, the soul does not say, “Be present”; but, “Reveal and manifest Your hidden presence, whether natural, spiritual, or affective, in such a way that I may behold You in Your divine essence and beauty.”

The soul prays Him that as He by His essential presence gives it its natural being, and perfects it by His presence of grace, so also He would glorify it by the manifestation of His glory.

But as the soul is now loving God with fervent affections, the presence, for the revelation of which it prays the Beloved to manifest, is to be understood chiefly of the affective presence of the Beloved.

Such is the nature of this presence that the soul felt there was an infinite being hidden there, out of which God communicated to it certain obscure visions of His own divine beauty.

Such was the effect of these visions that the soul longed and fainted away with the desire of that which is hidden in that presence.

John of the Cross (1542-1591): Spiritual Canticle, Stanza 11, 2-4.