Psalm Reflection: The Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time - Cycle A

“My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God.” - Psalms 63

Why do we want what we want?

We want food because we are hungry.

We want something to drink because we are thirty.

We want shelter because we are cold.

Those make sense, but I am not talking about those desires.

Why do we seek meaning in life?

Why do we get angry at injustice?

Why do we desire community?

These questions point to something much deeper. These desires go beyond the animal brain and instincts that we share with other creatures on this planet. These questions point to what is difference about us. If we were cosmic accidents with no divine source or destiny, why would we have any desire or aspiration for anything beyond food, survival and reproduction? 

Our desires are doorways to the divine.

We seek meaning because we were created in the image and likeness of God, in whom alone we can find our ultimate fulfillment. Nothing in this world can satisfy these desires, and yet we all have them. So, logic dictates that the origin and destiny of these desires must be outside of this world.

When many people seek out the Lord, they speak of trying to “find God,” but the very presence of God dwells in each one of us. We do not need to look any further than inward. Our own desires reveal to us that there is something greater to our existence than mere existence.

Every desire is a desire for God. 

Some of these desires become twisted and corrupted. They manifest in sinful, worldly, addictive, or pleasure-seeking behaviors, but fundamentally they are desires for the true, good and beautiful that have been distorted.

Some of these desires call us outside of ourselves to serve others and to seek a relationship with the Lord. No matter what we choose, the source is a deep, transcendent desire for purpose, meaning and relationship.

Love, belonging, truth, goodness, and beauty. We all want them all, and there is no reason for us to want them other than the fact that the desires were placed there by the only one who can fulfill them.

So, I ask again: why do we want what we want?

Because we are all thirsting for God.

In the words of Pope Saint John Paul the Great: 

“It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your heart your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.”

Jesus chose this truth in the Gospel of John. The very first words He speaks are “what are you looking for?” (John 1:38). He already knows that we are all ultimately looking for God.

What are you looking for? 

What do you desire?

What is your purpose?

This week, prayerfully reflect on these questions. When you answer them, ask yourself why you are giving that answer. Keep asking why, and you will peel back the layers of your desires to find the same thing we all have: a heart burning with a desire for the Lord.

Explore that desire. 

Seek the Lord and turn away from cheap alternatives.

Do not settle.

God has no equal, and anything less than Him is a counterfeit that will never satisfy. 

“God alone satisfies.” - St. Thomas Aquinas

I am praying for you, please pray for me, and I will see you in the Eucharist.

Matt

This reflection is based on the Responsorial Psalm for this Sunday, November 12th, 2023, which is The Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time - Cycle A: Psalms 63:2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8.