Coram Deo: Word Of The Week

A Latin phrase that means “before the face of God”. The idea is that the life of the Christian is lived coram Deo – before the face of God. Thus we should examine what we do and say as we remember that God sees us all the time and that He is watching. It also points to our hope of heaven where we will fully live coram Deo. This term is also used to speak of our relationship with God as distinguished from our relationship with our fellow humans being (coram homnibus/coram mundo). We could also speak of coram Deo as the vertical dimension of relationship (us and God) and coram homnibus would be the horizontal dimension (us and those in the world around us).