It was Palm Sunday in 1987. A religious priest living here in Rome was alone in his congregation’s chapel, faithfully observing the practice of Morning Prayer. One of his responsibilities here in the city was to hear confessions for the novices of the Missionaries of Charity. Suddenly, as he continued to pray his breviary, he heard a voice deep within his soul saying, “Tell Mother Teresa, ‘I thirst.’” It seemed very strange to him, and he did not quite understand the experience, so he kept praying. A second time he heard, not with his ears but deep within his soul, “Tell Mother Teresa, ‘I thirst.’” He looked up, somewhat taken aback, at the crucifix on the wall and asked Jesus, “Are you talking to me?” A third time, he heard what he now understood as a command, “Tell Mother Teresa, ‘I thirst.’”
The priest then wrote a letter to Mother Teresa, asking her pardon for what certainly seemed to be quite odd, and dropped the letter off when he went to hear the confessions of the novices. The next time he went to the convent, Mother Teresa was there and she confronted him: Are you the priest who heard Jesus say, “Tell Mother Teresa, ‘I thirst’”? He said that he was the one who had written the letter. She asked him what else Jesus said, and the priest answered, “Nothing.” She asked him what he thought it meant; he answered that he did not know. What he also did not know was that Mother Teresa had been experiencing a deep thirst for Jesus for a very long time. She was suffering through a profound sense of aridity and even abandonment in prayer, and had begun to interpret this as a sharing in Jesus’ thirst on the cross. She understood her work in caring for the poorest of the poor as that of quenching the thirst of Jesus, even as she was continually thirsting and longing for him.
The last quarter of the Catechism of the Catholic Church is dedicated to Christian prayer. It contains some of the richest teachings of our faith on that intimate life we share with God. At one point the Catechism reflects on the scene in St. John’s Gospel, and the woman at the well who meets Jesus. Our Lord turns to her and asks her for a drink of water. It goes on to make the connection that rests at the center of Christian prayer: “God thirsts that we may thirst for Him” (CCC #2560).
We are now in the heart of Advent and this time of year always involves a longing and waiting for God. Hopefully it has reached the depths of our prayer. We should be longing for and thirsting for God, and that intimacy with Him in the depths of our souls. It should also extend outward, to see God’s work taking place in the lives of those we love and in the sick and suffering souls we each know and encounter. Maybe we have even grown tired, waiting for God, wondering what is taking Him so long to act and to answer our prayers. St. Peter, in the Second Reading this weekend, indicates that we are not the only ones waiting. In fact, he tells us, God is waiting for us! He writes, regarding the Second Coming:
The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard “delay,” but he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
—2 Peter 3:9
God is waiting for us to be fully alive in Christ and to orient everything in our lives towards Him. That word, “repentance” is “metanoia” in Greek, and it literally means to change our minds, our hearts, and to see the world around us with new eyes. It means to look at God, at our neighbor and even at ourselves in a new way, an attitude that is wide open to the coming of Jesus Christ fully into our lives.
St. John the Baptist, in the Gospel this weekend, is also teaching us about this preparation for Christ. He announces:
A voice cries out: "In the desert prepare the way of the LORD!"
-Isaiah 40:1-3
God wants us to be ready this Advent, to be prepared for the coming of Jesus Christ. He is longing, yearning and pining for us to be thirsty and ready for Him. There is a beautiful prayer written in the 16th Century by the great mystic and Doctor of the Church, St. Teresa of Avila. She is reflecting on her tremendous desire for God, her thirst for a life totally immersed in Him. She knows, theologically, that He is also thirsting for her, and she ponders why these longings together have not been brought to fruition. She writes:
If the love you have for me,
is like the love I have for you,
My God, what detains me?
Oh, what is delaying you?
God is thirsting for her thirst, and she longs to be fully united to Him. She ends by seeking His mercy to prepare her heart for the coming of Jesus Christ:
Lord, make my soul Thine own abode
And I will build a nest so sweet
It may not be too poor for God.
She asks that her soul may be like a nest, so that God can rest in her heart like a dove. There is a beautiful image for this nest in many of our homes this Advent. It can be found in many of the churches throughout the city, and there is even an image of it in St. Peter’s Square. The image is the empty manger, the empty crib, a nest waiting for the infant Christ this Christmas.
We ask for the grace of God to prepare that nest—through our daily prayer, by our worthy reception of the sacraments and by our works of charity—that it might not be too poor for God. This Advent, we seek a deeper thirst for the presence of the living God, who we know, beyond all doubt, is longing, pining and thirsting for each of us.
