What do I seek?

Have you ever caught yourself asking this question? I certainly have - and my answer left me unsatisfied. Among what I came up with were professional advancement, higher pay, a larger house, etc. In a word: comfort. With four growing children and staring down the barrel of Catholic school tuition, it's not that these things are inappropriate for my wife and I to seek. However, they do fall in the category of earthly treasures and, so, simply fail to satisfy. In the words of a wise man recently shared, satisfaction is a satisfiction. There are not enough earthly treasures to satisfy. Note that satis is Latin for 'enough.' 

Today's first reading from Acts and the Gospel of John complement one another. Acts recounts a community where all was held in common and no person was in need for those who owned property or houses would sell them, bring the proceeds of the sale, and put them at the feet of the Apostles. Is it possible to detach oneself from pursuit of things? If we know things will never make us happy (even if that larger house is sure nice to have) how do we navigate this world and, as Jesus puts it to Nicodemus, be born from above?

A source of helpful and centering reflection for me of late has been a contemporary interpretation of the first principle and foundation from the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius by David Fleming, SJ. It reads, in part:

The goal of our life is to live with God forever... We should not fix our desires on health or sickness, wealth or poverty, success or failure, a long life or a short one. For everything has the potential of calling forth in us a deeper response to our life in God. 

The Easter season celebrates Jesus' resurrection. Jesus' saving act was guided by his deepest desire for communion with his Father and with us. So what do you seek? What do you desire? Trust that God is already at work - and has always been at work - through your deepest longings. Even if you have yet to realize them, God knows them and wants you to know them as well.