Longing.

“Our need for Him is absolute, our desire for His coming should be unbounded.” - St. Gabriel of Mary Magdalene

My need for Him is absolute.  It is certain.  It is without doubt.  I am nothing without Him.

My desire for His coming should be unbounded.  Without limit.  Endless.  Unboxed.  Wild and untamed.  Just like the holy ones who laid down blood for the Love of the Lamb.

My heart is stirred to an honest examination: Do I long for Him like that?

I think of the words from the Eucharistic prayer during Christmas season: the Virgin Mother longed for Him with love beyond all telling.

My friends, we ought to long for Him with every fiber of our being. We ought not be satisfied by anything other than the very Love of God which gives us life, which empowers us, which holds us in being at every moment of every day.  That love which grants us hope and a future.  That love which has paved the one and only way to eternal life.  

We ought to be caught up in it.  Caught up in a holy longing for the only One who is worthy of it.  

Our longing ought to be unbounded.
Without limit.
Without end.
Without measure.

And yet.  And yet our longing is often tame, boxed in, compartmentalized.  When it is convenient, I will pray.  When it is cool, I will pray.  When I feel like it, I will pray.  When I stop suffering, I will pray.  

But it is not about that, my friends.  It is about allowing our hearts to long for the One who made them with a boundless longing.  It is about feeling the interior restlessness and knowing that this unrest we feel is a deep, ardent longing for the very Spirit and Life of God.

The Apostles longed for Him without bound as they prayed fervently for His promise in the Upper Room.
The Virgin Mother longed without end for the Son within her womb.
Magdalene longed without sensibility as she waited at that empty tomb.

Saints do not have a modest longing for God.  And neither should we.  

Saints, real saints, let their loaning for Him lead, govern, and direct their lives.  Saints move in accordance with their pure and ardent longing.  It is their longing for Him that moves them to love with such radical frivolity.  It is their longing for Him that makes them foolish in the eyes of men, and precious in the eyes of God.  It is their longing for Him that leads them to pour out their very lifeblood for the sake of the Kingdom.  

We are not called to anything less than that.

My friends, we must ask ourselves: Do I long for the Lord with the intensity of the saints?  What longing is my life guided by?

The Lord longs for the hearts of you and I.

The holy longing.
The unbounded longing.
The unending longing. 

That is His longing for us, but it ought to be our longing for Him.