31st Sunday Ordinary Time (B) 5 November 2000 Sermon

 

[This is one from the archives, as I did not get to write one last week]

31st Sunday Ordinary Time (B) 5 November 2000 Desire for God

We are told in the Gospel that we should love God above all else, with our whole heart, soul, and mind.

We can find this difficult because God can seem remote or abstract, whereas we are more comfortable with people and things that we can see and touch.

Even if we want to love God we can find it hard to know precisely how to do so.

We can learn something of how to make progress here from considering another important topic at this time of year - the souls in Purgatory.

We are asked to help the souls in purgatory by our prayers. Help them to do what precisely?

To see the face of God. That is their greatest longing.

If you had been crawling through the desert for three days, your greatest longing at that time would be for a drink of water.

If you had been stranded on a raft in the middle of the ocean your greatest longing would be to see a ship come by.

Well, if you are in purgatory, your greatest longing is to see the face of God.

They are close enough to God to know how good He is, but not close enough to be able to see Him, and it is a great frustration for them.

We could make an inadequate comparison from our own experience whenever we have just missed experiencing something that we really wanted to do.

If we just missed out on a trip, or seeing a particular concert, or being present at a memorable event.

Or, more seriously, the feeling of grief for the death of one we love.

It is that sense of nearly having, but not having it now. It becomes the one main desire.

In purgatory the souls have nothing else to distract them. (We are insulated from this pain by having other things to do.)

In this they can teach us what it means to love God - loving God means not putting a dozen other things ahead of Him.

On earth we tend to crowd God out as we can get so busy with other things. We mean to get around to God, but well, the time just seems to get away.

But even on earth we get snatches of awareness of God, which really pierce the heart.

The effect of some music, for example, which seems to awaken long ago and far away memories, or hopes that we could not easily put into words.

The almost unbearable feeling of nostalgia that can grip us at times as we think of lost friendships and pleasant moments that can never be recaptured (in this life at least).

We have a way of glossing over the past. The ‘good old days’ itself is indirectly a longing for heaven, as we sense within us the possibility of something better than this.

Nostalgia is a good image of what purgatory must be like, because it is a sad and sweet experience at the same time. We possess partially what we like, but it escapes our grasp.

So we learn from these moments that there is a greater world beyond. The hard-boiled dismiss these experiences and get on with life. But for us with faith, and hope, these moments are signs of something better to come.

We can use them to motivate us to seek out God. Like the deer that yearns for running streams, so my soul is thirsting for You, my God.

If we do this, we are fulfilling in a way that we can understand the command given by Jesus: to love God above all else.

This is not just a commandment, it is a desire. A desire that we ourselves have. We will realize it in purgatory; why not realize it now and set about seeking Him?

The best thing about all this is that if we are seeking Him we will eventually possess what we desire. It may seem a long time coming, but once we have possession we won’t mind that!