Your Desires Tell You What You Are
Do you really want to know what you're like? Study your desires. What
things does your heart habitually seek?
Desire is like a thermometer that actually measures your spiritual life.
Worldly desires lead to a life of worldliness. Sensual desires make a
sensual person. Self-centered desires cause a mediocre and selfish life.
If your desire for God is only half-hearted, you're leading a tepid
Christian life. You're suffering from spiritual mediocrity and you're a
long way from perfection of the First Commandment. If your desire for God
is consistently ardent, you're making progress. If it's ever on the
increase, you're making great progress in holiness.
God loves great desires. If a man ceases to desire God and the things of
God, his soul is in a tragic state. Earthbound, tied to earth by a hundred
shackles of sensual and worldly desires, he seems incapable of any spiritual
ambition or aspiration for God. Spiritually he is a walking corpse! He
needs a miracle of resurrection to awaken his soul to its need for God.
Such people, incidentally, usually are a burden to themselves and to their
friends.
God loved Daniel because he was a man of desires. He loves anyone who has
great desires, Christlike ambitions, or longings for the spread of God's
Kingdom. These are the timbers used by God to ignite the world with His
love. Why is a cloistered contemplative like St. Theresa named "Patroness
of the Missions?" Because of her overwhelming desire for the conversion of
all souls to God!
Desire is always the first step of your soul toward God. If there's no
desire for Christian Perfection...if your soul experiences no deep need of
God, obviously you'll expend no great effort to achieve union in love with
Him. That's why the study of Christ is so basic to a fervent Christian
life. In meditation He is seen to be totally desirable both as God and man.
There the desire to follow Him is ignited and stimulated. So, if you want
to know what you are really like, take out fifteen minutes for some serious
soul-searching and make this test...
Think of those things or objects in life that you consider most desirable.
Be very honest with yourself and make an objective list. What are those
things upon which your heart has become attached? This list will uncover
the depth of your vanity, your pride and your sensuality. It will also
point up any secret avarice, envy, or any other species of selfishness. Of
course, it will also be a measure of your fervor and love of God.
Is God just an afterthought in your life? Do you use Him just to call on
for the fulfillment of your own desires? Do you strive to bend your will to
His, rather than to try to get Him to conform His Sanctifying will to your
own? Do you really consider the perfect love of God as the greatest and
most desirable object in life? Do you have any longing for greater union
with our Lord? What do you do about it?
An honest appraisal of one's self is always the first step towards
self-improvement. Any psychiatrist will add that it's also the foundation
of emotional maturity. So face up to your habitual desires. Find out just
what does motivate your usual activities. Compare these desires with the
Beatitudes given by Christ in His Gospel. Then, you'll know whether your
desires need intensification or reformation!
By the late Father Kilian McGowan, C.P.
Do you really want to know what you're like? Study your desires. What
things does your heart habitually seek?
Desire is like a thermometer that actually measures your spiritual life.
Worldly desires lead to a life of worldliness. Sensual desires make a
sensual person. Self-centered desires cause a mediocre and selfish life.
If your desire for God is only half-hearted, you're leading a tepid
Christian life. You're suffering from spiritual mediocrity and you're a
long way from perfection of the First Commandment. If your desire for God
is consistently ardent, you're making progress. If it's ever on the
increase, you're making great progress in holiness.
God loves great desires. If a man ceases to desire God and the things of
God, his soul is in a tragic state. Earthbound, tied to earth by a hundred
shackles of sensual and worldly desires, he seems incapable of any spiritual
ambition or aspiration for God. Spiritually he is a walking corpse! He
needs a miracle of resurrection to awaken his soul to its need for God.
Such people, incidentally, usually are a burden to themselves and to their
friends.
God loved Daniel because he was a man of desires. He loves anyone who has
great desires, Christlike ambitions, or longings for the spread of God's
Kingdom. These are the timbers used by God to ignite the world with His
love. Why is a cloistered contemplative like St. Theresa named "Patroness
of the Missions?" Because of her overwhelming desire for the conversion of
all souls to God!
Desire is always the first step of your soul toward God. If there's no
desire for Christian Perfection...if your soul experiences no deep need of
God, obviously you'll expend no great effort to achieve union in love with
Him. That's why the study of Christ is so basic to a fervent Christian
life. In meditation He is seen to be totally desirable both as God and man.
There the desire to follow Him is ignited and stimulated. So, if you want
to know what you are really like, take out fifteen minutes for some serious
soul-searching and make this test...
Think of those things or objects in life that you consider most desirable.
Be very honest with yourself and make an objective list. What are those
things upon which your heart has become attached? This list will uncover
the depth of your vanity, your pride and your sensuality. It will also
point up any secret avarice, envy, or any other species of selfishness. Of
course, it will also be a measure of your fervor and love of God.
Is God just an afterthought in your life? Do you use Him just to call on
for the fulfillment of your own desires? Do you strive to bend your will to
His, rather than to try to get Him to conform His Sanctifying will to your
own? Do you really consider the perfect love of God as the greatest and
most desirable object in life? Do you have any longing for greater union
with our Lord? What do you do about it?
An honest appraisal of one's self is always the first step towards
self-improvement. Any psychiatrist will add that it's also the foundation
of emotional maturity. So face up to your habitual desires. Find out just
what does motivate your usual activities. Compare these desires with the
Beatitudes given by Christ in His Gospel. Then, you'll know whether your
desires need intensification or reformation!
By the late Father Kilian McGowan, C.P.
