Lent 5
March 22, 2015
Desire Is
Fulfilled by Desire
A boy
and his family was one time at his elderly aunt’s house for dinner. The old
woman asked the boy if he liked Brussel sprouts. The boy said, “Yes, I do like
Brussel sprouts,” so the aunt gave him a heaping spoonful of them. At the end
of the meal, the aunt noticed that the boy hadn’t touched the vegetable on his
plate. “I thought you liked Brussel sprouts!” the aunt exclaimed. “Oh, I do
like them,” the boy replied. “I don’t like to eat them, but they sure are nice to look at!”
That’s
how many people approach Jesus. “He’s nice to look at, He’s great to have
around when you need Him, but I don’t want to get overly involved with Him.”
What a far cry from the Greeks in the Gospel – they ask the Apostle Phillip the
same request that has echoed down throughout history – “We want to see Jesus!”
Their desire for the Lord motivated them to travel a long distance from Greece
to worship God and seek a personal encounter with Christ.
When I was a senior in high school I started
to go to community college for a philosophy course. Now, for the previous six
years I had been homeschooled, so I pretty much lived a sheltered life. And
boy, were my eyes opened at the community college! Not only was the professor
an atheist who would often challenge my Catholic beliefs, but my fellow
students were completely absorbed in the world – their lives revolved around
money, parties, the music and movies of the age (this was the time when Eminem
was popular – anyone remember him now?), or the next time they could hook up
with their girlfriend. Any physical or emotional desire they had, they could
satisfy.
But I
noticed that they weren’t happy! I realized that there are deeper desires of
the human heart, deeper than our desire for food or money or pleasure. This was
a conversion experience for me: they kept striving for more, more, more and yet
were still empty. It made me think that perhaps all human beings have desires
that can’t be fulfilled with pizza or beer or girlfriends or money.
I think all of us desire to love
and be loved, to find meaning and purpose, to seek truth. These desires are
“written on the human heart”, as our first reading says. And all of these
desires are fulfilled in Jesus! We find in Him infinite love. When we look to
Him, we realize that the meaning and purpose of our lives is to be supremely
happy with Him in Heaven. And we desire to have a truth to build our lives on –
so we can build our lives on the One Who calls Himself “the Way, the Truth, and
the Life.”
In the fourth century, a young
woman wrote a letter to St. Jerome, one of the Doctors of the Church, and asked
him for advice about what she should do with her life. Jerome wrote back, “The
human soul must love something; our
mind is necessarily drawn to a desire. But earthly desires are only overcome by
spiritual desires.” Every desire we have is supposed to lead us to God; as GK
Chesterton once said, “Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking
for God.” Our hearts are restless until they rest in Jesus, St. Augustine
famously said.
So how do we fulfill these
desires? Through a deep and loving relationship with Jesus. Having a deep
relationship with Jesus is simple; it requires only three steps. First, we repent of our sins. We get rid of those
addictions, vices, and sins in our daily lives that prevent us from being
loving Christians. Second, we decide
that Jesus is worth everything. We make a choice that He will be the most
important one in our lives. Finally, we follow
Him by living holy lives and by praying to Him daily and coming to Mass weekly.
“Sir, we want to see Jesus.”
It’s not just the request of the Greeks; it’s the desire of every human heart.
Today, make the decision – that Jesus will be the center of your life.
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