What do you desire: Homily for Sunday August 2 2026

What do you desire? Food and water are essential to human thriving. And the readings today indicate that God cares about both. But God cares about more. Not just food to eat, and water to drink. No, water to give eternal life, and food to join us to the real presence. Readings for Today.

What do you desire?

What do you desire? On Monday, our novices, the four of them, will make simple profession in Chicago. Five of our student brothers will profess for life. Men and women have responded to the desire of a lifelong exclusive relationship.

For others, the desire is to live out the vocation of marriage. There is the desire some have to help the poor, perhaps in the Costello Center. Maybe the call to serve in a faraway land, like Africa or in India. Maybe the desire is to make a difference in politics or examining how we can meet Jesus in other people.

In these days of hot weather, the words of the first reading are easy to believe. A call to water. A call to drink. For too many, however, their desire for water is part of a desire for basic needs, those things that we all deserve. And it is tragic, living in a world of such abundance, that people still go without.

What we desire can impact every aspect of our life. Where our treasure is, there our heart is also. What we truly desire is where we place all of our energy. We sacrifice for it. We work hard for it. This weekend, the readings challenge us to think more about what we desire. How is it we seek to quench our thirst? How is it we desire to be fed?

The first reading in the Gospel focuses on this. But it is also the second reading that helps us to see the deepest desire of our hearts. Jesus. Do you desire Jesus? Do you see a relationship with Jesus as such a treasure you will do all he wants, will follow wherever he leads? What does it mean to desire Jesus? What does it mean to want this relationship so much that we believe we should pursue it with every fiber of our being? And just how to strengthen this desire?

The second reading helps us to see the most important aspect of any personal relationship with Jesus. It is not that we seek God. God seeks us. God initiates this relationship. We can love because God has loved us. We can seek because God has found us.

Do you trust God? It can be easy to say yes quickly. But this question, “Do you trust God?” is not the type that can be answered without really thinking about it in a spirit of deep reflection. We cannot answer it in the midst of all the distractions of life. And we also need to examine our own lives.

Where do we need the water that quenches our thirst? How is it we need to be fed? What are the parts of our soul that feel empty, things that only God can fill? Can we acknowledge how it is that God has already fed us? Can we see how it is that God has already quenched our thirst? Can we discover the blessings we have received from the relationship God creates in us, so strong that it cannot be broken?

Where do you need God in your life? In what ways do you need God? Where is it in your life that God has blessed you? How well do you know God? As much as we might thirst for God, it is always the case that God thirsts more for us. In fact, to have a relationship with God, all we need to do is to welcome God into our hearts and souls. But we have to think carefully just what we need to do to welcome God.

Welcoming God is not first about anything we do in terms of action, but rather our willingness to simply give God our time. What greater gift can we give God than our time, our presence? For when we do this, give our time and our presence, we come to know just how much bigger, how much more loving, how much more generous God really is.

In our Western culture, we can think that everything depends upon what we do. We reward accomplishments. We hold up as great examples those who always seem busy, who always seem to be on the go.

But in the Eastern culture, the emphasis is different. We are to enter into a life filled with mystery. We are to stand before God with the realization that if spiritual fulfillment is about accomplishments, then we can never, ever do enough. But if we commit to simply entering into a relationship with God, allowing God to fill our thirst, allowing God to feed our hunger, allowing God to make the most of our time, it is then that we realize for what we were made. And we were made for something amazing indeed.

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