"What are you looking for?"

St. Joseph Church (Cottleville)
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B
January 17-18, 2009 - 5:00 p.m. & 7:00 a.m.

1 Sam 3:3b-10, 19
Ps 40
1 Cor 6:13c-15a, 17-20
Jn 1:35-42

One of my favorite summertime activities is to take in a Cardinals baseball game at Busch Stadium. And when I attend a game at the stadium, any number of thoughts stream through my mind. At one moment I might be caught up in awe as I watch a towering fly ball off the bat of Albert Pujols land in the left field grandstand. At another moment, I might find myself thanking the Lord that I was born in St. Louis and not in Kansas City or on the north side of Chicago. But sometimes in a vast crowd like that at Busch Stadium, I find myself thinking more profound thoughts. As I look at the thousands upon thousands of faces that fill those stands, I wonder to myself how many of those people know that they have a God who loves them so much that 2000 years ago He sent His very own Son to die for them, to give them eternal life.

It is one of the most beautiful truths of our faith that our Lord knows each one of us by name, that He longs to have a personal, intimate relationship with each one of us. He calls to each one of us constantly, day and night, as He called out to Samuel thousands of years ago – by name. And He waits for a response. He waits for each one of us to say to Him, “Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will. . . . Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.”

This weekend the Church in the United States brings to a close National Vocations Awareness Week. A vocation, in simple terms, is really nothing other than the Lord calling each of us by name. Our vocation is the context in which He desires to share that personal, intimate relationship with us. Many today speak about a crisis in priestly and religious vocations – and for good reason. Our world has a great need for many more vocations to the priesthood and religious life. It’s vitally important that every one of us here is committed to these vocations in one way or another. For the young people here who have yet to commit themselves to a vocation, your duty is to be open to a call to the priesthood or religious life and to seriously ask the Lord if he is calling you to that life. For those of us who have already found our vocations, we have a responsibility to encourage the youth of our parish to consider such a call.

But there is another vocation in even greater crisis in our world, and this crisis is really at the root not only of the crisis in priestly and religious vocations but also of many other ills that plague our society. I speak, of course, of the vocation of marriage. How desperately we need holy and healthy marriages! After all, the family depends upon the marriage, and society as a whole depends upon the family.

It’s no secret that this crisis exists. All we have to do is look at the prevalence of divorce in our society. If our own lives have not been touched by it, we have certainly witnessed the great pain it causes in the lives of others. No one wants their marriage to end that way. Its prevalence indicates that something has gone terribly wrong in our marriages.

What, then, needs to happen in our society to heal these wounds in the vocation of marriage? At the beginning of his pontificate, Pope John Paul II proposed a solution. In his Theology of the Body he laid out a beautiful vision of what it means to be created as man and woman in the image of God. He proposed that the root of our current struggles in marriage is an inadequate understanding of human sexuality. Our society’s basic belief about human sexuality is that it is simply for pleasure, not much more than a form of entertainment. The results of such an attitude can be seen in the millions of children that have been aborted over the past three and a half decades and in the immense pain it has caused in the hearts of their mothers and fathers.

The Church, on the other hand, proposes a much more beautiful and profound understanding of human sexuality. God made us as sexual beings, as male and female, so that our very bodies would cry out the truth that we are not meant to be alone. We were created for others. Our sexuality is meant to lead us not to seek pleasure for ourselves but to look to relationship with others as the meaning of our lives. So it is that every vocation lives out this call of our sexuality. In vocations to the priesthood and religious life, it is lived out in a celibate life dedicated to the service of God’s people in the Church. In the vocation of marriage it is lived out primarily in that beautiful relationship between husband and wife – the relationship that is meant to be free, total, faithful, and fruitful – and in their loving care for their children.

There’s not time in one Sunday homily to give a full explanation about everything the Church teaches on the subject of human sexuality, but it must be pointed out that for four decades now the Church has been calling her sons and daughters to conversion in the area of artificial contraception. She does so not to form a rule that will make everyone’s life more difficult. It isn’t as if there are bishops sitting around in Rome just thinking up ways to place more burdens upon us. The Church teaches what she does because she recognizes artificial contraception as a barrier to truly holy and healthy and happy marriages, as a root cause in our current crisis in marriage. She is drawing from 2000 years of wisdom to guide us all on the path that will ultimately satisfy our deepest desires. She wants only true happiness and joy for married couples and for their children. Without saying anything more on this subject, I would simply invite you, especially if this is a difficult area for you, to consider looking more deeply and with an open heart at what our Lord is teaching us through His Church. You may be amazed at what you discover. There are many couples here in our own parish who could speak of how strong and healthy their marriages and families are because they have embraced this teaching.

In the Gospels, our Lord has a way of asking very profound, pointed questions in just a few words. Today He does so when He turns to the disciples of St. John the Baptist and asks, “What are you looking for?” Imagine the Son of God looking into your eyes and asking you the same question: “What are you looking for?” No matter how we would answer that question at first, Christ poses it to our hearts because He knows that ultimately we’re all looking for exactly the same thing. When we strip away those things that concern us on the surface, when we dig more deeply into our desires than what we think we need here and now, we come to see a craving that cannot be satisfied by anything in this world. In the midst of this world in which everything is passing, we want something eternal, something that will last, something that does not change but will satisfy us forever. Ultimately, our Lord knows – and we know, if we are honest with ourselves – that we’re looking for Him. We’re longing to hear Him speak our name, directly to our hearts, just as He spoke Samuel’s name so many centuries ago.

“What are you looking for?” Our Lord longs to give each of us exactly what we are ultimately looking for. He longs to do so through the vocation that He has given to us. As we come again to this holy altar today, may we each ask Him for the grace that we need. If we have yet to discover our vocation, let us ask Him with open hearts to show us His will for our lives. If we have found our vocations, let us thank Him for that gift. Let us ask Him for the grace to live them in accord with His will, for continued growth where we know we are living our vocations well and for conversion in those areas where we still struggle to embrace His will. Let us all, together with the disciples, ask the Lord, “Where are you staying?” And let us follow Him faithfully, wherever He will lead, when He responds, “Come, and you will see.”