One of my favourite Gospel images is that of Jesus curing the blind man as he entered Jericho, (Luke 18:35-43). Jesus heard the blind man calling out and "ordered him to be brought to him; and when the man came near, he asked him, 'What do you want me to do for you?'" In the blind man’s case it seemed obvious but still Jesus asked him what he wanted. It was important to Jesus that he articulate his desire.
During retreats I like to imagine myself looking into Jesus eyes and him asking me, "Noel, what do you want me to do for you?" I believe if I knew the answer I would be free, happy, holy and wholesome. I don’t believe it is an easy thing to know and I am a long way of knowing what I really want but I feel it is critical to keep searching.
I often meditate on a quote from DH Lawrence. He once wrote, "All that matters is that men and women should do what they really want to do. Though here as elsewhere we must remember that man has a double set of desires, the shallow and the profound, the personal, superficial, temporary desires, and the inner, impersonal, great desires that are fulfilled in long periods of time. The desires of the moment are easy to recognise, but the others, the deeper ones, are difficult. It is the business of our Chief Thinkers to tell us of our deeper desires, not to keep shrilling our little desires into our ears… Man has little needs and deeper needs. We have fallen into the mistake of living from our little needs till we have almost lost our deeper needs in a sort of madness."
As DH Lawrence says, "The desires of the moment are easy to recognise, but the others, the deeper ones are difficult." But the search is worthwhile, even essential. There is no lasting happiness in the shallow and superficial needs but there is in living out of our profound and great desires. And as the story of Jesus curing the blind man in Jericho shows it is necessary to know what we really want for people to love and help us and for us to grow. Otherwise we stay a prisoner of our shallow and fleeting desires.
In a couple of weeks Lent will begin. It is an opportunity to reflect. Perhaps rather than denying ourselves the shallow, superficial things we should search out our most profound desires, to learn who we really are and what we really want. The struggle of the spiritual life is often not our will against God's will, but our own will struggling with its divided self.
When in the Beatitudes Jesus promised, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." He wasn’t thinking of sexuality, for Jesus the "pure in heart" were those who willed one thing, "to love God and their neighbour" and whose hearts were not divided by competing loyalties and desires. It is only the love of Jesus and others and a knowledge of our profound wants that will protect us from the confusion of the trivial and artificial.
Remember that in Jericho Jesus did not ask the blind man to do anything for him, all he asked of him was to tell him what he wanted.
Fr Noel Connolly SSC is a Columban missionary priest. He is a member of the Columban Mission Institute in North Sydney and a lecturer in Missiology at both the Broken Bay Institute and the Catholic Institute of Sydney.