Wanting
“Wanting, without really wanting: that is your attitude.” (Saint Josemaria).
I want to go to Heaven when I die.
There are really only a couple of reasons why a person like me might want to go to Heaven when we die. The first reason is that we are in love with God. And being in love with God we – like all good lovers – want to spend all of our time with Him. When a couple meet each other for the first time and being to experience the stirrings of love, they generally want to spend a lot of time together. They will see each other a lot and speak to each other often. They will be interested in each other very much. A soul should feel the same attraction for God – but magnified. Because unlike a lover who may love us imperfectly and even selfishly at times, God’s love is perfect. He loves us without fault and with reason. It is not a feeling to God – it is a way of BEING to God to love us. We humans cannot even begin to imagine what the extent of God’s love is for us. Even in contemplating the crucifixion for eternity, we cannot imagine that God could love us as He does. Even if I should be saved and reach Heaven, I could not imagine – even with an eternity of contemplation of the Beatific Vision the extent of God’s love for me…
This is ONE of the reasons why people like me long to go to Heaven when we die. But there is another reason…
People like me might long to go to Heaven when we die because we are afraid of the alternative… We are afraid of the distress of Hell. We know that Hell is unpleasant and we are afraid that the unpleasantness of it – the terrible despair of Hell will make eternal damnation something that we do not wish to aspire to…
Saint Josemaria phrased it beautifully when he said that such souls are “wanting, without really wanting: that is your attitude.” And he is right.
I want to be saved and I want to go to Heaven when I die. I am just a little bit too lazy or selfish or weak to bother myself to please my Lord. I am contrite when I fall, but I am not worried about the fall itself. I am conditioned to the fall and expect that though God asks so much more of me, I am only willing to give to God a small portion of myself.
“You have not set yourself against God. Your falls are due to weakness. All right; but those weaknesses are so frequent...” (Saint Josemaria, “The Way”, at 713).
And I have been thinking about that weakness in me and how I want without wanting. And it seems to me that this is truly a terrible thing – a terrible terrible disrespect of my Beloved…
My poor poor God!
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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