"This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me"
Who created everything? Who created you yourself? What are all these creatures? What are you? And how are we to say who he is who created all this? To speak it your thought must conceive it...: so let your thought move towards him, draw close to him. If you want a close look at something, you draw close to it... But God is not discerned except by the mind, he is not grasped except by the heart. And where is this heart with which one can see God? «Happy the pure in heart, they shall see God» (Mt 5:8)...
In one of the Psalms we read: "Come close to him and you will be enlightened" (Ps 34[33]:6 Vg). To come close so as to be enlightened you must hate the darkness... You are a sinner, you must become righteous. But you won't be able to receive righteousness if evil still gives you pleasure. Destroy it within your heart and cleanse it; cast sin from your heart where He whom you desire to see desires to dwell. The human soul, our "inner self" (Eph 3:16), draws as close to God as it can: that inner self recreated in God's image which was created in God's image (Gn 1:26) but fell away from God into unlikeness.
It is true that we don't either draw nearer or fall away from God in space: you distance yourself from God if you no longer resemble him; if you come close to him then you do resemble him. Notice how our Lord wishes us to draw close to him: first of all he makes us like him so that we can be near him. He tells us: "Be like your heavenly Father for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good." Therefore, love your enemies (Mt 5:45.44). To the extent that this love increases within you it will bring you back and reshape you in God's likeness...; and the closer you come to this likeness by growing in love, the more you will begin to feel the presence of God. But who is it you are feeling? The One who is coming to you or the One to whom you are returning? He has never been far from you; it is you who fell away from him.