Fifth Installment: "After this Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said, 'I thirst'." John 19:28...........................................................................................Early in John's gospel Jesus meets the woman from Samaria at Jacob's well and says to her, "Give me a drink." At the beginning and the end of this rather long story Jesus asks us to satisfy His thirst. This is how God comes to us, as a thirsty person wanting something that we have to give. God's relationship with creation is entirely that of gift. To be a creature is to receive one's being as a gift. God wants to be in friendship with us, and friendship always implies equality. And so the one who gives us everything invites us into a friendship of equality by asking for a gift back, whatever we have to give. Most of all God wants us, our unique self. Usually we think that reaching God is hard work. We must earn forgiveness; we must become good, otherwise God will disapprove of us. But this is not correct. God comes to us before we have ever turned to Him. God thirsts for our love. The same desire He had on the cross is the same He has now and shall have until the time of the last soul to be saved is in His bliss. ......................................................................There is something embarrassing about admitting that you long for someone when the other person does not fully reciprocate. You feel foolish and vulnerable admitting that you love more than you are loved. The moment you own up to your longing, then you become open to rejection and humiliation. Yet this is how it is with God. God is overwhelmed with thirst for us and for our love, and yet He must put up with the occasional rather condescending pat on the head, "Oh, it is Sunday, we had better go and visit God," as if God were a boring relative. So when we find ourselves more loving than loved, then we are in the position of God and maybe have a better sense of what God endures and risks, all for the sake of receiving what only we can give, our own self, our love........................................................................ But we too are thirsty. Maybe we do not really thirst for God as yet. Maybe we only have little thirsts: for a bit more money, for companionship, for success at work, etc. If these are our little desires, then we must start there. The Samaritan woman wanted water and so she went to the well and there met Jesus. If we are honest about our little desires, then they will lead us to Jesus too. We will learn to become thirsty for more, even to become thirsty for God who thirsts for us. Most people think of religion as about the control of desire. Desire is dangerous and can be disturbing, and so religion helps us tame it. But traditionally this has not been the teaching of the Church. We are invited to get in touch with our deeper desires, to experience the power of God in our depths, to let our deeper desires be opened up and released, as happened to the woman at the well. There is so much more of life for each of us to choose and live......................................... ....................................................Thirst is a very fundamental experience, probably because our bodies are largely water. Dehydration is the seeping away of our very being, our substance. We feel we ourselves are evaporating. So often the last desire of those who are dying is for something to drink. It also stands for that deepest thirst of our souls for the One who gives us substance and being at every moment and who promises eternal life: "Oh, God, my God, you I long for, for you my soul is thirsting. My body pines for you, like a dry weary land without water." Psalm 63 ...............................................................................................On the cross the dying Jesus asks you and me for the gift of water. But soon afterward He will die and His side will be opened, and out will pour living water. He will unlock our own spiritual depths and richness if we take the time and allow ourselves to be attracted to Him, lifted up on the cross. (See John 3:14; 12:32; 19:34) As He said in the temple, "If anyone thirsts, let him/her come to me and drink. Anyone who believes in me, as the scripture has said, 'Out of his/her heart (the actual word is belly) shall flow rivers of living water'." John 7:37-38 Bernie Owens