“AND they came to Capernaum looking for Jesus.” (Jn 6, 24) The gospel talks about how the people were so impressed with what they saw and heard from Christ that they were always looking for him. It seemed like they couldn’t help but be attracted to him.
This episode points to a basic truth about ourselves, and that is that we actually have a natural longing for God, though such longing can be thwarted by a number of reasons.
This is how the Catechism explains this point. “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 he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for.” (27)
As to how such natural desire for God can be thwarted, the Catechism says: “But this ‘intimate and vital bond of man to God’ can be forgotten, overlooked, or even explicitly rejected by man. Such attitudes can have different causes: revolt against evil in the world; religious ignorance or indifference; the cares and riches of this world; the scandal of bad example on the part of believers; currents of thought hostile to religion; finally, that attitude of sinful man which makes him hide from God out of rear and flee his call.” (29)
We have to see to it that this natural longing for God is always protected, developed and pursued all the way to its last consequences. We should always feel the necessity for God, an abiding hunger and thirst for God.
We have to realize that we need him always, that we need to refer everything that we are, that we have, that we do — from our most private and hidden thoughts, desires, intentions to our most overt and big actions — to him.
We need to realize that everything has to begin and end with him. He should be the inspiration and the purpose, as well as the pattern and the way from the start to the end of things. He is the very author of everything in reality, the creator of the nature of each creature, be it living or inert, etc.
We need to see to it that we develop a real hunger and thirst for God to such an extent that we would really feel the corresponding urges. Our yearning for God should not just be a spiritual or intellectual affair.
It has to be felt, like we do when we hunger for food and thirst for water. It should filter down to our senses that would involve the corresponding organs of our body. Otherwise, that hunger and thirst for God will not last long, let alone, something that is of the abiding kind.
Our relationship with God would be compromised if we only manage to give some appearance of piety which many people have become good at. And nowadays, with all the many alluring distractions, it is imperative that our relationship with God is really strong. Our hunger and thirst for God should dominate all the other desires and yearnings we have in life.
It would be good if we can find ways to develop a deeply felt hunger and thirst for God. This, for sure, will not compromise our humanity, our naturalness, etc. On the contrary, it will purify, enrich and elevate our humanity to the supernatural life of God that is meant for us.
Yes, we are meant for God. We are nothing when we are not with God!/PN
