Hunger: Pleasures of the Heart

"They all ate and were satisfied" (Luke 11:17).

This one sentence is recorded at the end of today's gospel miracle of the feeding of five thousand. It contains within itself many of the longings aroused by and also satsified through the gift of the Holy Eucharist. Truly, it is the bread of heaven, containing within itself all sweetness.

I've been continuing to read Michael Casey's book Toward God: the Ancient Wisdom of Western Prayer. In it, he quotes Gregory the Great (Gospel Homily 36.1) in reference to the dynamic hunger-satiety which is both the catalyst and result of prayer. The same can be said of the Great Prayer, the Eucharist.

Gregory the Great, ever the master of the human spirit's psychology, hits the nail on the head of my own experience.

"There is a great difference, dear brothers, between the pleasures of the body and those of the heart. Bodily pleasures set alight a strong desire when they are not possessed, but one who has them and partakes of them, becomes satiated and tires of them.

On the other hand, spiritual pleasures are tiresome when they are not possessed, when they are possessed they cause even greater desire. The one who partakes of them hungers for more, and the more one eats the hungrier one becomes.

In carnal pleasures the appetite causes satiety and satiety generates dissatisfaction. In spiritual pleasures, on the other hand, when the appetite gives birth to satiety, satiety then gives birth to even greater appetite.

Spiritual delights increase the extent of the desire in the mind, even while they satisfy the appetite for them. The more one recognizes the taste of such things, the more one recognizes what it is that one loves so strongly.

We cannot love what we do not have because this would involve not having experienced the taste... you cannot love God's sweetness if you have never tasted it. Rather, embrace the food of life with the palate of the heart so that, having made trial of his sweetness, you may be empowered to love."

A Physical Pull to God

This weekend is Ascension Sunday in most dioceses of the United States. Ascension is a funky kind of Solemnity of the Church. No one knows quite what to do with it. After all, we've already had the really big festival in Easter. Ascension and perhaps even more so Pentecost hang out on the edge of most churchly consciousnesses.

But Ascension is significant. It shows us where we are going, where our Leader has gone before us.... body and soul, humanity and divinity. The Ascension, like Easter, indicates that the physical body IS important to God and to humanity. We are not simply ethereal soul-beings who shed our physical selves on the way to God. In fact, it's quite the opposite.

The physical IS the way to the Father. Our lives on earth are not the anteroom to a more significant heavenly existence. Our physical existence here is the stuff out of which the afterlife is made.

The Ascension also shows us the power of God to draw us to Himself. As Jesus said to Mary Magdalene and the other Apostles "I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."

There is something fundamentally God-ward in each one of us, no matter what our physical or spiritual state. From conception to natural death we are being drawn into God's love and god's presence, like Jesus who, having descended to become one of us, takes the path of return, drawing us after Him.

Some additonal wise words from Michael Casey's Toward God: The Ancient Wisdom of Western Prayer.

A rubber ball held under water submits. Once released, it springs to the surface: and the deeper it is held the more it strains to rise. The human spirit possesses a natural bouyancy.

It can be held down by enslavement to the senses, by aquisitiveness and ambition, by anger and violence, or by what the New Testament calls "cares." It can be held down, but its natural tendency remains dynamically oriented toward God. It can never be entirely satisfied until this upward impulse is allowed freedom.

Gone to God via the Cistercians

Lo, in the midst of a very busy week at work I am off to Sparta for a retreat with my Cistercian brothers at Our Lady of Spring Bank Abbey near Sparta, WI. I may or may not be able/ willing to blog during this time. So, I leave you with some very meaningful words from another Cistercian, Michael Casey, from his book Toward God: The Ancient Wisdom of Western Prayer.

Prayer, then, is entering the unseen reality of our lives. It is allowing ourselves to experience the mystery in which we are. Suffering is a door in the wall that daily routines erect around our hearts. Passing through it we begin to understand something of the dark side of human experience, something profound, something a little frightening because it is so large, yet something immensely tender and gentle too.

In bringing us to the reality of our life, prayer also introduces us to the reality of god's life. We are put in touch with the persons of the Holy Trinity, not through words but at a deeper level. We feel that we are from the Father and that our whole life is a journey toward God.

We discover a sense of solidarity with the Word, in our being bonded with the person of Jesus and in our union with all the saints. We experience the presence of the Holy Spirit, inciting us to good, turning our thoughts to God, directing our actions, supplying for our weakness and, like a homing beacon for an incoming plane, guiding our steps toward the very heart of God.