The Jesuit Guide To (Almost) Everything - James Martin [27]
Why this emphasis on desire? Because desire is a key way that God speaks to us.
Holy desires are different from surface wants, like “I want a new car” or “I want a new computer.” Instead, I’m talking about our deepest desires, the ones that shape our lives: desires that help us know who we are to become and what we are to do. Our deep desires help us know God’s desires for us and how much God desires to be with us. And God, I believe, encourages us to notice and name these desires, in the same way that Jesus encouraged Bartimaeus to articulate his desire. Recognizing our desires means recognizing God’s desires for us.
Here’s a dramatic story to illustrate this. At least it was dramatic for me.
FATHER? FATHER? FATHER?
A few months before I was to be ordained a deacon (the final step before the priesthood), I started to get migraine headaches—almost every week. At the time I was in the middle of theology studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Life was only moderately stressful, and I had suffered from migraines before, but never with such intensity. I decided to see a doctor.
After some tests, the doctor informed me that he had seen a “spot” on my test results. He suspected that it was a small tumor under my jaw that would have to be removed.
At the time, I was something of a hypochondriac, so even though my father had had the same operation thirty years before and had recovered, I was terrified. What if it were cancer? What if I were disfigured? What if? What if?
Fortunately, my friend Myles is a Jesuit physician. (That doesn’t mean that he is a physician who takes care of Jesuits only; he’s a physician who’s also a Jesuit.) Myles offered to arrange the surgery at the Catholic hospital in Chicago where he worked, with a doctor he knew well. By way of convincing me, he invited me to stay in his Jesuit community during the subsequent recuperation. What a relief! I was grateful for his friendship, his professional help, and his compassion.
Until this time I had never had major surgery. Fear welled up within me, and with it self-pity. Yet when I saw all the others in the hospital waiting room a few weeks before the surgery, I realized the truth of what Myles had said: When you get your diagnosis you ask, “Why me?” When you meet others who suffer, you ask, “Why not me?”
On the morning of the surgery, lying on a cold hospital table, with tubes snaking out of my arms, I was consumed with fear. Myles entered the room in his surgeon’s gown and introduced me as a Jesuit to the physicians and nurses in the operation room. After saying a few words of encouragement and promising he would pray for me, he left.
A nurse stuck a needle in my arm, placed a mask over my face, and asked me to count backward from one hundred. I had seen this dozens of times in the movies and on television.
Suddenly an incredible desire surged up from deep within me. It was like a jet of water rushing up from the depths of the ocean to its surface. I thought, I hope I don’t die, because I want to be a priest!
The Energy of Life Itself
We tend to think that if we desire something, it is probably something we ought not to want or to have. But think about it: without desire we would never get up in the morning. We would never have ventured beyond the front door. We would never have read a book or learned something new. No desire means no life, no growth, no change. Desire is what makes two people create a third person. Desire is what makes crocuses push up through