I was twenty years old when I first truly saw love. I don't mean the love I have for things like coffee or extra crunchy peanut butter. I don't mean the diminished version of love that we see in our world. I don't even mean the beautiful love I see between my grandparents. The love I saw was different. It was reckless and relentless and reactionary. It was abandoned. It was infectious. It was authentic. When I was twenty years old, one of my dearest friends, Heidi, showed me what it meant to love Jesus. Heidi loved Jesus in a way I had never seen before and hadn't ever really believed could exist. She didn't just know about Jesus. She didn't just quote Scripture. She didn't just go to Mass. Heidi KNEW Jesus. She had encountered him. She had allowed him to embrace her so completely that truly nothing else satisfied her. And by her abandonment, by her acceptance of healing, by her satisfaction, she made me want to know Jesus too.
Recently, I have become obsessed with the writings of St. John the Evangelist. I can definitively say that his Gospel is my favorite for many reasons, but mostly because in it, and in his epistles, you can almost feel his deep love for the Lord. As I read his words, it is as though I am reading his heart, a heart that is steadfastly and deeply devoted to Christ. But as I read them, I also recognize that these words weren't written by chance or written by a person who had simply HEARD about Jesus. His Gospel and three letters were written by a man who loved Jesus because he sought nearness to Jesus--despite circumstance and despite others' behavior towards Jesus.
John is the disciple we see resting on the chest of Jesus at the Last Supper (John 13:23). While all the other apostles are reclining at table, enjoying conversation, John wanted nothing more than to be close to Jesus--to hear the beat of his Sacred Heart, to feel his strained inhale and exhale, to hear the rumble of his gentle voice. John is the disciple we see at the foot of the cross, not forsaking Jesus in the midst of turmoil and confusion, but seeking nearness to him even when Beauty was made ugly. John is the disciple who clings to our Blessed Mother, offering himself as son to the woman who had traced the infant hand of our Lord and whose heart burned with unimaginable love for him (John 19:26-27). And John is the disciple we see sprinting to the tomb, perhaps with deep desire to see Jesus' promise come to fruition or to protect the precious body of his Lord from desecration (John 20:4).
And as I pray about these two people, I recognize the way to deeper intimacy with Jesus. Heidi could never have shown me that it was possible to have a life of fulfillment and joy, far more than what the world insufficiently offers, if she had not first found the sufficiency of the love of Christ. Heidi's life would never have served as a witness to me if her life had not been centered totally on encountering the Lord in prayer and Sacrament. And in the example of St. John, we see that he could never have written the words, “see what love the Father has bestowed on us, that we might be called children of God" (1 John 3:1) if he had not felt the security of a child in his Father's embrace. John could not definitively say, “God is love" (1 John 4:16) if he had not palpably and consistently experienced that love with such profundity. And John could not say with certainty that in Jesus “our joy may be complete” (John 15:11) if that had not been the experience of his own life.
In John 4, we hear the story of the Samaritan woman at the well. Most of us know this story, but it is the END of the story that usually gets bypassed. After receiving healing and experiencing the consuming love of Jesus, the woman goes to the town to tell them everything. Seeing the effects of her nearness to Jesus and what he had done for her, they recognized their own thirst for him and "invited him to stay with them". When they invited him to stay, when they drew near to Jesus, when they encountered him for themselves, they were able to say to the woman, "we no longer believe because of your words, for we have heard for ourselves and we KNOW that this is truly the savior of the world", the one who thirsted for them too.
Plain and simple: Jesus is just asking us to invite him in. He asked Heidi and St. John and the woman at the well the same question. WILL YOU LET ME IN? Will you let me draw YOU near to MY heart? Will you let me heal you? Will you let me embrace you? Will you let me show you the love you so desire?
It was five years ago that I truly saw love. And in these past five years, Jesus has changed from a concept to a person. He isn't just SOME one, he is THE one. But in spite of that, I can still pinpoint so many areas of my life in which I fail to invite him in. I still have so many parts of me that I'm ashamed to bring to the Seeker. I still have such a prideful, self-consumed heart that I fail to recognize my own thirst for nearness with Jesus. Jesus wants to be invited into this mess of my life, despite the sinfulness and failings, because his Sacred Heart, overflowing with perfect love, still thirsts for my affections. And for yours. This week, let us acknowledge thirst--the thirst that exists within our own hearts FOR Jesus. But perhaps more importantly, let us acknowledge the thirst that Jesus has for intimacy with us. As we seek nearness to Jesus in prayer and Sacrament, may he draw us ever-deeper into his heart and cause us to say, "we have heard for ourselves and we KNOW that this is truly the savior of the world."
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