The True Form of Desire

The more human beings are conscious that only He can constitute their true rest, the more they are moved by the fact itself that God exists. They cannot help being flooded with emotion at the fact that God exists, as Fr Giussani so often repeated: "My heart is glad because Christ lives." For this reason, His presence fills us with silence: "For Your way and Your judgments, O Lord, we look to You; Your name and Your title are the desire of our souls."  But this desire cannot survive even a few minutes if it does not become an entreaty, because the true form of desire is entreaty: it is called prayer.

Fr. Julian Carron, Spiritual Exercises, 2011

"The true form of desire is entreaty...prayer." I am moved by the possibility for life, that is, the expansion of my being in relation to truth, goodness, and beauty. This is the desire that reality engenders in my heart. But it is a desire that exceeds my capacities, that reveals that I am poor and in need, that I must go beyond myself and "give myself away" in order to attain my "true rest." If I remain alone, my desire cannot remain true. I must reduce reality to something less than myself, something I can grasp and consume. Thus I do violence to persons and things, and find in the end that I am still alone with my frustration.

But I do not need to remain alone with my desire. At the origin and the end of desire there is Another, and it is He who calls me through all my life to give myself over to Him in my poverty, to allow desire to blossom into a plea, a crying out, a patience that is both painful longing and joyful confidence in His mysterious presence and in His promise of fulfillment.

The true form of desire is entreaty, and within that plea is already rejoicing, worship, and a foretaste of glory: "My heart is glad because Christ lives!"