"A New Season"
"The Thirst of Love"
My heart has been created to
experience the most exclusive intimacy with God, and my desire for God is "written" in my heart. I
have both been created by God and for God, and God never ceases to draw me to
himself (see Catechism of the Catholic Church # 27). The depth of
my human desire is driven on by great spiritual thirst. I am thirsty for God. If
I am to make progress in the interior life as a contemplative I must become
thirsty for God (see Catherine of Siena. The Dialogue, chap. 54, p.
107).
If I don't have a driving desire for
God, all I need to do is ask Him for this in prayer: "Draw me!" (Songs
1:4). God and I are meant to be engaged in a most exciting drama of love's
desire. Desire longs to possess the other. My love of God sparks a growing
thirst for Him. For, "our God is a
consuming fire" (Heb. 13:29). The "ferocious flames" of God's love make me
thirsty for Him. My heart has been created to have a thirst that "cannot be
quenched by the pleasures of this mortal life"--worldly delights (see Francis
De Sales, Treatise on the Love of God, bk. III, chap. x).
We read in 1 John 4:19, "We love
because he first loved us." Because "God is love" (1 John 4:8.16), He is
the first to love and also the first to thirst. His is the "first thirst". We
hear the 'voice' of God's thirst in the sacred scriptures: "Give me a drink"
(John 4:7); "I thirst" (John 19:28); "I belong to my lover and for me he
yearns" (Songs 7:11). Because "God is love", He is thirsty for my love. This
seeking and thirsting of God comes from the depths of His desire for me. God
thirsts that I may thirst for him (see CCC 2560). He is the "thirsty
fountain" (Marie-Noel. Notes intimes p.311); "God is thirsting to
be my thirst" (St. Gregory Nazianzen. Discars sur le bapteme, 40:27,
PG36, 397C).
I thirst for God because He first
thirsts for me. The more I am drawn into the love and thirst of God, the more
my love and thirst become transformed into His: I begin to love and thirst more
with the love and thirst of God for humanity! My 'love thirst' has a voice too,
and we hear it in the sacred scriptures as well:
"O God, you are my God-for you I
long! For you my body yearns; for you my soul thirsts" (Psalm 63:2); "I
thirst for you like a parched land" (Psalm 143:6).
I long to quench this ardent spiritual
thirst of my soul. I long to be led to the "wine cellar" of the "Bridegroom",
there to be "intoxicated" by love's vintage!: "Bring me, O king, to your
chambers" (Songs 1:4). God and I are
meant to share this most personal and secret intimacy, this "paradise of
delights", in the secret of my heart (see The Cantata of Love. Blaise
Arminjon, S.J., p. 77). There, God calls me and leads me to His "house of
love's intoxication" (see Arminjon, p. 151) to be soul-satisfied.
Questions:
1) How
"thirsty" am I for God right now?
2) Are
there any worldly attractions that I am still "thirsty" for?
Scriptures:
Any scripture from the text; Psalm 42: 2-3; Is. 26:9; Is.
55:1; John 7:37-38
