Early each Thursday morning for more than a decade, I’ve parked my car in a sprawling lot, mounted concrete steps, and passed through a revolving glass door to enter a world where illness, pain, and disease preside. This is my local hospital. I am an extraordinary minister of holy Communion, although I am hardly a “minister” at all, having had no more theological schooling than a few college classes and no seminary training. In fact, I have a very checkered past—wretched sinner, fallen-away Catholic, once divorced, and for too much of my life a venal, proud, arrogant man.

In the Book of Genesis we read that God created humankind in the divine image. (See 1:26.) Because we are created in the “image of God” and have the “capacity for God,” we are capable of union with God. Today science is revealing parts of the human brain involved with emotion that may also be involved in the experience of God. If the brain is a complex of neural circuits and God cannot be known without the human brain, then we can say we are “wired for God.” What these insights suggest, on the most basic level, is that we are biologically oriented toward God. We are truly God-centered human creatures whether or not we want to admit it. If this is true, then we should have no trouble recognizing God’s voice when God speaks to us, recognizing God’s presence when God appears to us, or recognizing God’s embrace when God touches us.