The Psalm writer says, “As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God. My being thirsts for God, the living God” (Psalm 42:2).
Do you remember the first time you recognized your thirst/longing for God? The time your core being felt like it did not belong here on earth? Knowing you were not where you were mean’t to be.
I remember it very well. I felt the longing to go home, to my heavenly home! I was in my twenties busy with homemaking, raising my boys, being a wife and mother and this loneliness and longing caught me off guard! I was happy and fulfilled in my life and it was hard to identify. I had everything I had prayed for and here I was lonely for my Lord. It wasn’t that I was not going to Mass, receiving the sacraments or praying regularly. I realized He was calling me to a deeper relationship with Him. He touched my heart and with the help of the Holy Spirit I slowly identified what was going on in my interior being. Prayer is a yearning for God’s presence, for understanding his word, for knowledge of His Will. St. Augustine prays, “May I know You, may I know myself.”
As the Catechism of the Catholic Church (#27) states, “The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will we find the truth and happiness we never stop searching for.”
We find that God has implanted in each of us a conscious desire for a perfect love that only God can fulfill. St. Augustine of Hippo wrote nearly 1,600 years ago, “Thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”
At our best we want to lose ourselves in God’s love and rest in him. We want to hear his word and respond with our whole being. We want to know His Loving Will and to submit to it totally. God is Perfect Love…it is what we are made for.
May this year be a fruitful time to satiate your yearning/longing for Him who wants to satiate His yearning/ longing for you. Our Awesome God will not satiate His longing for you unless you cooperate! He is a kind and gentle God. He will not force His love on you. You must want Him in your life, that is why He gave you a ‘free will.’ A genuine relationship of Love with the Trinity must flow freely from God to you and you to God. Only then can you experience what St. Augustine means when he prays, “May I know You, may I know myself.” He is waiting for you…Until next time…
Eva