In today’s Gospel reading, The Lord has a beautiful way of conveying the message of Spirituality.
Our theme for today is: “Is The Lord in Our Midst or not?”
Is The Lord in our hearts or not yet?
From our Sunday missal:
“People will always be hungry and thirsty again. Besides a continued need for food and drink, human beings have many more wishes and desires….They may yearn for truth, freedom, justice, love…. The great bishop, Saint Augustine stated: ‘My heart is restless till it rest in God.’ God-with-us in The Lord Jesus is ready to satisfy human desires. The Bible uses a wealth of symbols to bring this out, among which are bread, wine, oil, and light.
“Today’s Bible readings uses the symbolism of water…. The Theme of this Sunday is: ‘Is The Lord with us or not?’ He is.
“The point is that we should open up to this mysterious presence of God in our midst, which today’s Bible readings present through the symbolism of water…. ‘For anyone who drinks it, says The Lord, the water I shall give will become in him a spring welling up to eternal life’.”
The message of The Lord in our Gospel reading is: There is need in our being, in our hearts, or in our soul, that cannot be satisfied by the material or physical matters that we acquired. It can only be satisfied by our creator, who in the first place was responsible for implanting that need in our being. But because we are free to choose where to satisfy that need—our longing for happiness, we pursue it in so many areas:
- Some would pursue it on clothes, bags, or shoes or shopping.
- Some on food or drinks or hard liquor.
- Some on sports, like basketball, scuba diving, etc.
- Some on acquiring honors through medals from contests in sports or other events.
- Some on gambling, casino, or heavy betting.
- Some on different women or men as partners in life.
- Some on travels, going from place to place or from beach to beach.
- Some on pursuing wealth, or properties.
- Some on gadgets, like expensive cameras, cellphone, etc.
- Some on drugs.
- Some on power, political or otherwise.
Now it’s ok to travel (it’s educational and good to enjoy God ‘s nature), to enjoy basketball or scuba diving, or to drink wine, provided we have already found the central and ultimate need of our being. Those things, like clothes, food, sports, can be enjoyed in proper perspective.
The central need of our hearts or soul or being is Spirituality, which only God can give or provide. All the others will not. In Tagalog, ‘bitin iyan sa pangmatagalan.’
The Lord is telling us that the Water of Spirituality is the ultimate ‘water’ that our hearts is looking for. Once we found it, the inside of our being, ‘our inner thirst,’ will not be looking for anything else anymore. That is why Saint Augustine was able to say: ‘Lord, my heart was restless until it rest in you.’
Today, March 19, is the feast day of Saint Joseph. The man who is more of action than words. Happy St. Joseph day to everyone !