Nothing Less

"For what have I in heaven? and besides Thee what do I desire upon earth?" (Psalm 72:25)

One of the lines from Scripture that is very fitting for the Easter season we are liturgically living is the "whom seekest thou?" that Our Lord asks Mary Magdalene at the tomb. Sometimes, I wonder if we are so focused on our "lives" that we don't seek Him. Isn't that an interesting thing? We can be so absorbed in our own spiritual life and what we are "accomplishing" or not, that we lose sight of Him.

Our Lord gives us desires, but sometimes they aren't fulfilled in this life, rather becoming a means toward filling our hearts with the desire for the beatific vision--a longing for eternity. God uses everything to call us to Himself, often in ways we do not expect or look for, but there is nothing beyond His grasp that He can't use to draw us to Himself . . . we have to remember however, that this "drawing" is a drawing to Himself on the Cross, an embracing of all that He wills to send us.

"What have I in heaven?" There is a throne awaiting us from which to reign with Him, if we have suffered and died in union with Him in this life. There--we shall possess Divine Charity to the degree we let that same Charity consume us in this life, consume all the things that are not Him. It is a profound truth that the more we let go of ourselves, the more free we are, and the more our gaze remains fixed on Eternal Beauty.

"To make something beautiful or to make a beautiful thing is to make Him known," such goes a quote of a dear person who went to my college and recently passed away. We cannot love what we do not know. Perhaps one way of getting to know Him is simply by radiating His Presence, shattering our self-sufficiency and embracing His Light.

"Besides Thee, what do I desire upon earth?" Nothing less will satisfy the longings of our souls.