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Hold Fast to This Hunger
At this stage, before we enter the gateway, we quite understandably know only this world. Even so, we long for something more. We sense that this world, however desperately we need it and however wonderful, is not all. We need and crave for something we do not understand. What we need we cannot yet imagine, much less know. But we can and must forsake the world in a particular way. That is, we can decide not to give ourselves to the world; we can keep at least one focus of attention on that single desire which has no name, that longing which receives a name only after all other efforts to satisfy it are renounced. At this point we enter the gateway. And we are met in this act of renunciation by a mysterious presence. Then we know. We have felt the hunger and thirst for God. (p. 28)
What is surprising is how arresting are the words, "Man shall not live by bread alone." Their truth penetrates deeply into us. They hit us at the center of our being. (p. 31)
We only need to hold fast to this hunger and not be diverted from it. We only need to resist using all the goods our society so abundantly puts before us as substitute foods. If we hold to the fact that we do hunger and thirst for that which is presently nameless, then Jesus tells us we are blessed; for we shall be satisfied. We are to attend to that hunger and thirst. We are to renounce anything that would divert our attention from it. This puts us at the entrance to a path that leads to a new reality which will feed us. By our hunger, we reach a place in our lives where we recognize that we are dependent; we are not in charge or control. We need to be fed. We are then in a condition in which we are able to receive. That is the condition in which we must be in order to receive a mysterious reality. (p. 32)
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Grace and Peace,