SEEKing the Infinite
(I recently entered FOCUS's Blog Contest for SEEK, and while my post wasn't chosen as a finalist [I do highly recommend looking at the great posts that were chosen here], I still think it's worth sharing. I look forward to attending SEEK in Nashville in January!)
When I was growing up, I would sometimes experience very unique moments of deep philosophical reflection. I would be in my room, playing at school, or walking around outside, and a thought would strike me, “Why am I here?” Not why I am here reading, playing, or walking, but why is it that I am? How can I go to sleep and wake up remembering all I’ve done? What would it be like not to live? Am I on a roller coaster of life that I can’t get off? Yes, here I am as an elementary school student encountering this existential dilemma.
This probably partially explains why I’m here today studying philosophy as a seminarian. Philosophy is simultaneously much simpler and much more complex than I thought it could ever be. In my classes, I have encountered many philosophers who have wrestled with these deep problems and come up with very different answers. Yet, the fact that so many have wrestled with these thoughts reveals that we as humans are meant to strive toward something greater. We have a longing for the infinite, a desire for complete good.
I think about how many things in life I have striven for. I want to be successful, especially in the classroom, getting the top grades. I want to be accepted by others. I want to be self-sufficient and financially stable. I want to experience the fun of life. I want to create and receive beautiful things, such as music, art, and nature. As the transcendentals express, I want the good, the true, and the beautiful.
Who doesn’t want these things expressed above? Who wouldn’t want to chase after the greatest goods of life and love? However, the largest temptation is that often we simply fail to look. We push aside our greatest desire thinking that happily-ever-afters are only for fairy tales. Instead of seeking, we often settle for whatever is in front of us. Often, the problem our culture sees with faith is how it can be true in this rationalistic age, but in my own life, my own struggle is wondering if the Gospel might be too good to be true.
Author and priest Ronald Rolheiser expresses the above in a simple phrase, “The Holy Longing.” When I first encountered this phrase, something clicked within me; I recognized that I was longing for something besides my feeble attempts at satisfaction. What consoles me is that this desire is universal, that all of us share in this longing for all good. What could satisfy us but the Infinite? What could express grand purpose in our lives but immortality? Yet why is it that I am often scared of discovering this vast reality?
Pope John Paul II recognized the internal conflict that all of us go through to shed our false lives and refuse to settle for the immediate. Ironically, I have found that only in striving for the holy am I able to see the vast good in every little thing in the world. When I am buried in worries, a simple sight of a colorful tree on campus reminds me of God’s providence. When I feel lonely or unaccepted, it’s the simple greeting of a friend that pulls me from my isolation. In those moments when the only prayer I am able to utter is, “Jesus, save me,” I discover the most beautiful reality of redemption.
What is perhaps the greatest consolation to me is that the saints simply discovered this longing and surrendered to God’s often-unpredictable grace. Psalm 42 says this purely, “As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God.” The journey of discovering our longing is just that, a journey. In walking together with each other and the saints, we already discover the tremendous gift of communion that Jesus always desires to give.
 |
| From St. John Paul II Chapel at Mundelein Seminary |
“It is Jesus in fact that you seek when you dream of
happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He
is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provokes you with
that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He
who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your
hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is
Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the
will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be grounded down by
mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving
yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.” John Paul II
When I was growing up, I would sometimes experience very unique moments of deep philosophical reflection. I would be in my room, playing at school, or walking around outside, and a thought would strike me, “Why am I here?” Not why I am here reading, playing, or walking, but why is it that I am? How can I go to sleep and wake up remembering all I’ve done? What would it be like not to live? Am I on a roller coaster of life that I can’t get off? Yes, here I am as an elementary school student encountering this existential dilemma.
This probably partially explains why I’m here today studying philosophy as a seminarian. Philosophy is simultaneously much simpler and much more complex than I thought it could ever be. In my classes, I have encountered many philosophers who have wrestled with these deep problems and come up with very different answers. Yet, the fact that so many have wrestled with these thoughts reveals that we as humans are meant to strive toward something greater. We have a longing for the infinite, a desire for complete good.
I think about how many things in life I have striven for. I want to be successful, especially in the classroom, getting the top grades. I want to be accepted by others. I want to be self-sufficient and financially stable. I want to experience the fun of life. I want to create and receive beautiful things, such as music, art, and nature. As the transcendentals express, I want the good, the true, and the beautiful.
Who doesn’t want these things expressed above? Who wouldn’t want to chase after the greatest goods of life and love? However, the largest temptation is that often we simply fail to look. We push aside our greatest desire thinking that happily-ever-afters are only for fairy tales. Instead of seeking, we often settle for whatever is in front of us. Often, the problem our culture sees with faith is how it can be true in this rationalistic age, but in my own life, my own struggle is wondering if the Gospel might be too good to be true.
Author and priest Ronald Rolheiser expresses the above in a simple phrase, “The Holy Longing.” When I first encountered this phrase, something clicked within me; I recognized that I was longing for something besides my feeble attempts at satisfaction. What consoles me is that this desire is universal, that all of us share in this longing for all good. What could satisfy us but the Infinite? What could express grand purpose in our lives but immortality? Yet why is it that I am often scared of discovering this vast reality?
Pope John Paul II recognized the internal conflict that all of us go through to shed our false lives and refuse to settle for the immediate. Ironically, I have found that only in striving for the holy am I able to see the vast good in every little thing in the world. When I am buried in worries, a simple sight of a colorful tree on campus reminds me of God’s providence. When I feel lonely or unaccepted, it’s the simple greeting of a friend that pulls me from my isolation. In those moments when the only prayer I am able to utter is, “Jesus, save me,” I discover the most beautiful reality of redemption.
What is perhaps the greatest consolation to me is that the saints simply discovered this longing and surrendered to God’s often-unpredictable grace. Psalm 42 says this purely, “As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God.” The journey of discovering our longing is just that, a journey. In walking together with each other and the saints, we already discover the tremendous gift of communion that Jesus always desires to give.
I reflect back on
my childhood philosophical musings, which occurred long before I knew
philosophy was an option. To my young
self, I respond cryptically yet clearly: the fact that I am reveals the
greatness of the I AM. Our authentic
humanity reveals the divine; may we join together in this path of longing and
seeking, receiving the eternal fulfillment of Christ’s love.
Comments
Post a Comment