A Reflection on the ‘O Antiphon’ for the 22nd of December
O King whom all the peoples desire
You are the cornerstone which makes all one.
O come and save us whom you made from clay.
What is my desire? Do I really have desire for this King, as today’s ‘O Antiphon’ proclaimed?
‘O King whom all the peoples desire’
The desire for God is part of what we are.
Christmas time offers for us a lot of wishes… But as soon as we open the gifts there will be a inevitable sense of disappointment. ‘Is that it?’ the small child asks when all the presents have been unwrapped. The desire remains even if you get what you asked for, and especially, if you get what you asked for! The longing is unsatisfied…
Much later the child learned the lesson of Augustine and come to know that there is a space inside us that nothing but the uncontained God can fill.
I remember when in my 16th year I spend a night at the Disco, and next morning was not able to get up for Sunday Mass, later on my confessor asked me “Do you know why you spent all night at Disco?’I say: ’No, I really do not know why.’ He answered:’ Because GOD LOVES YOU SO MUCH! You have in your heart a big desire for Him. You spent a whole night to feed your desire for God, but only God can do it.”
It was a revelation for me, it change a lot in my life. I do not mean that I stopped to dance. No, my relation with God went deeper and I started to dance with Him, as at last Sunday we heard from Zephaniah 3.14-18:’He will dance with shouts of joy for you’. God is still dancing!
‘Man can fully discover himself only in a sincere giving of himself.’ (GS24) We find ourselves only through making a gift of ourselves to God, who is our complete fulfilment.
St. Tomas Aquinas does not claim to prove that God will satisfy your soul. But he does prove that ‘God alone can satisfy’. That is, he proves that nothing but God, the real God, and the God of love can satisfy your deepest longing, and God can do this.
But God gives us freedom to make a true, good choice! You have nothing to lose, only your pride and misery
‘There is only one thing needful’ (Lk 10. 38-42). Your life can be ONE. You can be ONE. In speaking to Martha, Christ speaks to all of us. He sees us in her, and He wants to liberate us out of her illusion, and her worries, and led us into Mary’s ‘one thing needful’. He is the One we need to seek, and find, and meet and love, and serve in all things. Because everything we seek, every good, every happiness, every joy, every perfection, is in Him.
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