I Thirst

TRAINING

As a person who has competed in athletic events as a youth and into adulthood I have experienced thirst, but fortunately never to the point of total dehydration. I have trained for high school sports in a time where water breaks were few and far between. Likewise as an endurance cyclist I have expended by water intake on long rides and began to feel the effects an energy drop off. However, none of these incidents compare for my spiritual thirst.

THE WOMAN AT THE WELL

My story is like some who were raised in the Church but who fell away even though I attended Mass weekly. I became spiritually dehydrated. I was looking for a quick fix and complained much like the people who grumbled against Moses. I wanted things my way and was not willing to take direction or listen to the calling of God.  My heart was hardened much like the words from the psalmist in Psalm 95. My thirst was not quenched from attending Mass and as a matter of fact I became more alienated from teachings which I thought antiquated. Again I was much like the woman at the well who had circulated through a number of husbands as my sins piled up.

No drink could satiate my thirst. Nothing was good enough or tasty enough. There was no spiritual Gatorade. And I did not care that Jesus knew my sins. That well which I now see as Mass did not fill me up. I would go to the well drink and head out into the desert of life and become dehydrated as my spiritual being was empty. Somehow I managed to carry on.

THIRST QUENCHER

A funny thing how God works through his infinite mercy. After many years of visiting the well and some life changing events the well (Mass) became palatable. There was a sincere thirst and those bottles of Gatorade, Powerade, and the like were discarded for they were only temporary fixes. Paul states in his letter to the Romans "that hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." (ROM 5:2) Could this be what was happening? Did God love me so much that through the Holy Spirit I had been given the ultimate thirst quencher.

In his homily our associate pastor talked of thirsting for the Mass. The Mass is where one's thirst becomes quenched for it is in this union with others that we are brought together in worship. It is where one truly desires to take communion, to become the body of Christ. For me it is no longer an obligation which tainted the reason for attending, it is a desire, a thirst to want more. I still thirst, but this is a good thing. As for  the Gatorade slogan "For that deep down body thirst" there is no other quencher but God.