GOD IS ON OUR SIDE...AND PULLING FOR US

"We are healed of suffering only by experiencing it to the full." -- Marcel Proust 

"In the Sermon on the Mount, one of the pieces of gold glinting there is that Jesus proclaims those in want to be the blessed." -- from "The Sermon on the Mount, a brief homily, 1996"  

The [homily's] inference is that only those who are hungry for God will be fed by God...only those who are in some sense empty can be filled.

The blessed are blessed precisely because they are empty and can, therefore, be filled with God.

This understanding of 'emptiness' is quite at variance with the usual way we interpret the word 'empty.' In our culture, it is overwhelmingly a negative word: empty promises...the empty nest...the empty cupboard...the empty house.

We rarely associate emptiness with something good, and yet in this well-worn scriptural passage, it is deemed an essential ingredient in blessedness.

The message is clear: Guard your hunger for God, cherish it, let it increase...believing, as Jesus makes plain, the hunger itself is the blessing. -- further from the brief homily of 1996  

As an aside, the first time ever I read the Proust sentence, I knew it to be profound...and true. Yet when I read the homily, I so resisted the word "Jesus" that I missed the message entirely for a time. 

I do not doubt that happens for many of us. That we continue to seek still more spiritual growth, still study the Sermon against our reasoning mind's resistance, is proof that God is on our side...and pulling for us.

Thank you.