Whose Longing?

 

LONGING is the title of a book being advertised on Instagram. It was published about thirteen years ago.

Longing is something I am seldom unaware of – all the physical longings that stir in me every day. The emotional ones. Spiritual – my longing for God. And they are all interconnected. And, mistakenly, I tend to think of them as MINE!

The author, Joey O’Connor, suggests that the question we need to ask in life is not “who am I?” but “WHOSE am I?”

That second question brings me back to the time after my Mother died and a woman asked me, “whose are you now, whose son?” It stopped me in my tracks. It wasn’t something I had thought about.

I am nobody’s, I thought, nobody’s son.

This left me with a profound sense of emptiness and, at the same time, a certain sense of liberty. The liberty of no longer being answerable to my parents. But there was emptiness in that liberty.

To my great surprise, at the age of fifty-three, I became my Mother’s “lovely son.” It was one of the last things she said to me, a kind of parting gift, a revelation.

And from that came a clearer understanding, an acceptance that I am even more so God’s “lovely son.” This is the final answer to the “WHOSE” question.

Anyway, these two aspects of the book on Instagram have merged for me. The title and the question.

So, my question now is, “whose longing?”

My life is dominated by MY longings but now I am led to think about the primary longing – God’s longing. His longing for us. His longing for me.

I’m not sure if it’s even correct to speak in terms of God’s longing, for it must be on a completely different scale from what we know, infinitely greater and I’m really trying express the inexpressible.

But there is a sense of the Divine Longing in the cry of Jesus on the Cross – “I THIRST!” A cry that has been interpreted by the great spiritual writers as referring to His thirst for His people and not just the physical thirst of the moment. His eternal thirst, infinite longing.

You can sense it also in Genesis after the Fall. God walking in the Garden in the cool of evening, calling out to Adam and Eve, “where are you?” It also come across in the Prophets.

And so, I think this must have always been there within God.

I ponder God before Creation ever came into being. The Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit - together the essence of Love, Love infinite and eternally reaching out. And I wonder… God longing for someone to love. Not that God ever needed anyone, but Love must have something or someone to Love. Love longs to Love. That’s God’s nature.

Could it be that, just as God sought a companion for Adam – placing before him every amazing living creature, none of which was suitable or adequate to fulfil Adam’s longing…? Could it be that each stage of Creation, all the ages of it were somehow expressions of God’s own infinite longing, none of this inexpressibly fabulous universe, none of it matching that longing until “at last” He created “man.” The human person being the only part of Creation capable of responding to God’s longing, God’s Infinite Love?

This is what is uppermost for me now, with the focus shifting from all that I think of as MINE – my prayer, my love, my longing - learning once more that, before any of these stir in me, they are already and always stirring in God. In Him is the origin of all longing and in us is the response.

As St. John wrote, “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:10)

Not my prayer but the Holy Spirit praying within me

Not my longing first but the longing of God

Not our love for God but God’s love for us.

As often is the case, these divine realities are experienced and understood in our human encounters. Yesterday evening I went to bless the home of a Rwandan family who live in this parish. Mother and four of her mostly young adult children. What a joyful time as we prayed and sang in Swahili as well as English, and they in French. And we sat around the table for a couple of hours sharing delightful food - including ugali which I haven't tasted for years. Conversation, questions of faith, laughter. Love. So satisfyingly loving. And all of it fed some of the longing in me and I'm sure in them too.

In the most natural of ways we lived the promise of Jesus, "where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in the midst of them."

And they gave me this most precious gift of a picture made by Rwandan women in memory of the genocide. The basket in the centre represents - I think - all that a woman holds within. All that is held within each of us - particularly the inexpressible. The longings born of unspeakable pain that cannot be put into words and that only the Spirit of God can truly express. It is for Rwanda and it is for all the intolerable suffering being rolled out in this most turbulent world.

Only the Holy Spirit can truly express what is going on deep within a human being and, perhaps, it is in the Spirit that the Divine and human longings come together in a definitive way to find their complete expression. Distinctive in each person, understood in the native and the personal language of each one of us, expressed distinctively in each.

At Masses this Pentecost morning I asked if people would be willing to say "come Holy Spirit" in their mother tongue and it was so good to hear these words spoken in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Ibo, Swahili, French, Dutch, Tamil, Polish, Malayalam, Irish and others that I cannot at the moment recall. And two Rwandan families came to the microphone to sing a hymn to the Holy Spirit. It was truly moving and utterly beautiful.