Desire

Part of my reading this week has been about desires, holy desires. It's a personal spirituality that perceives the hand, desire, presence and call of God in our deepest desires, which are the basis of vocation. Not red convertibles: what we desire to do and be as human beings, and perceiving the call of God in the desire. Or, a little deeper, what we wish we desired, and recognizing God’s own desire, God’s summons, in our wishing for the desire.

Personal example. As a priest it bothers me that I’m not, as I know myself, a very spiritual person. Religious, OK, but not spiritual. I wish I were more spiritual. Or actually, in that I may be pretty much satisfied with myself as I am (a sin of either pride or complacency), I wish that I wanted to be a more spiritual person. If I were a more spiritual person, I could be a better priest; for example, offering myself as a spiritual director to persons who need and seek that ministry. As I age and contemplate my ministries and my ebbing-away life (face it, at 77 going on 78, life is ebbing), I’d like to be able to do that. But what it is, really, is that I wish I wanted to do that. It takes a couple years of education and training to become a qualified and certified spiritual director, and I have no desire to take on that effort. I wish I did. 

Maybe God will do something with what I wish I wished. Maybe my wishing to wish it is God already doing something about it. Naaanh! God could not be that devious and sneaky just to get what He wants out of me, eh?

TW+

Would it be too disingenuous to point out that this is not about me at all, but to induce any reader to reflect spiritually upon self? Discontentment, lack of satisfaction, even unhappiness may be part of God's nudging, God's pressing his desire for us, God's hope for us.