Restlessness

Homily for the 5^th Sunday in Ordinary Time
8 February 2015

       In our First Reading, Job, in his desolation, recites: I am filled with restlessness until the dawn.

       Fast forward a few millennia, and the great Bishop and Doctor of the Church, Saint Augustine of Hippo, writes in his Confessions: You have made us for Yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.

       This notion of spiritual restlessness is something that I would suspect most of here have wrestled with at some point in our lives: Where the presence of God seems distant, ambiguous and hidden from us, and we slump into a spiritual desolation like Job, believing that we “shall not see happiness again.”

       Spiritual restlessness is something that I have wrestled with throughout my life, including my time in the seminary and as a priest. And, so, yes, I still wrestle with this spiritual restlessness even now.

       Perhaps some of you here today are wrestling with this restlessness yourselves, right now.

       Spiritual restlessness deals with something being unsettled in the soul. It leads us to recognize a lack of peace in our lives. It can lead us into knowing loneliness, frustration, temptation, fear and despair. This kind of restlessness opens up the wounds caused by living a life apart from God – a life based in pride and sin. We search for meaning; we search for fulfillment; we search for healing.

       We turn to those things in life in which we believe that we will find alleviation for the loneliness, frustration, temptation, fear and despair. We turn to the physical pleasures and passions of our lives to attempt to calm the restlessness which overwhelms us.

       In dealing with this spiritual restlessness, the key is found in the Gospel. We must, like the people of Capernaum, seek out Jesus; we must search for the healing that only He can provide. Only in this way do we truly understand the words of Saint Augustine, that “our hearts are restless until they rest in [the Lord].”

       But there are also the moments when we need to allow the Lord to find us. Just as Jesus left Simon’s home early the next morning to seek out the lost and suffering, so, too, must we allow Jesus to search us out so that He may offer to us that peace which the world cannot give. He wishes to come to us, to preach to us the Good News of the love, mercy and compassionate healing that our God provides.

       Our First Reading from the Book of Job reminds us that the human heart will lose its way when overwhelmed by the ways of the world. Our hearts become lost in the distractions of the desires of the flesh, in our pleasures and passions. It is in these moments of spiritual restlessness that we turn from the calm of the Sacred Heart of Christ to the discontent of the heart of the world. We turn from the One who can give solace to our soul to the many which fight for our soul’s attention.

       What is it, then, that we need to be healed from? What is it in life that keeps our hearts restless? Is it our job? Is it one or more of our relationships with our friends and family? Is it something in our vocation to marriage, the single life, the religious life, the diaconate or the priesthood? Is it a habit – past or present – that continuously seems to gnaw at us? Is it a past sin that we can’t seem to let go of? Is it a situation in life that we have no control over, but we can’t let go of the thought of losing control? Is it because our relationship with God is not where we want it to be? Is it because we have a sin on our soul that needs to be confessed, yet we’re afraid of the belief that God won’t forgive that particular sin?

       No matter if it is one of these questions or another one that’s quivering the soul, we must allow the Heart of Christ to become ours; we must quiet the restlessness of our lives within the solace of the life of Christ and the life of His Church. We come to encounter the Lord this day in Word and in Sacrament to strengthen us – spirit, soul and body – so that we learn what it means to trust in our God – to be a son or daughter of the Father and a brother or sister in Christ.

       Like Job, our hearts will be “restless until the dawn” if we allow the darkness of sin and fear to overwhelm us. We will “not see happiness again” if we continue to choose the distractions of this world over the peace that our Lord offers us. Our hearts will continue to be restless until we lay them down at the feet of Jesus and learn what it means to rest in His Heart. We need to learn to surrender our lives to the Lord, for He does hear the cry of the poor, for our God is generous in supplying what we need, as long as we are courageous in asking for it.

       Through Word and Sacrament at this Mass, then, seek the solace of the Heart of God. Allow your heart to rest in His. Pray for the peace He offers, and receive it with open arms. Run to the Sacrament of Reconciliation if you need not only the grace, but most especially if you need the necessity of absolution – particularly if you have a mortal sin on your soul.

       Pope Francis reminds us: Our mission as Christians is to conform ourselves evermore to Jesus. We cannot do this if we allow our hearts to remain restless. We cannot do this if we don’t seize the opportunities our God places before us to trust in Him, to accept His peace, and to place before Him all that keeps our hearts restless so that we may rest in Him alone.

       And so, we pray:

Dear Lord Jesus, it is my will to surrender to You everything that I am and everything that I’m striving to be. I open the deepest recesses of my heart to You and invite Your Holy Spirit to dwell inside of me.

I offer You my life, heart, mind, body, soul, spirit, all my hopes, plans and dreams. I surrender to You my past, present and future problems, habits, character defects, attitudes, livelihood, resources, finances, medical coverage, occupation and all my relationships.

I give You my health, disabilities, physical appearance, home, family, marriage, children, sexuality, and friendships. I ask You to take Lordship over every aspect of my life. I surrender to You all my hurt, pain, worry, anxiety and fear, and I ask You to wash me clean.

I release everything into Your compassionate care. Please speak to me clearly, Lord. Open my ears to hear Your voice. Open my heart to commune with You more deeply. I desperately need to feel Your loving embrace. Shut the doors that need to be shut and open the doors that need to be opened. Set my feet upon the straight and narrow road that leads to everlasting life. Amen.

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Enjoy the journey . . .