A Sunday Thought From Fulton Sheen About Thirst To Start the Week Off Right

It's the 7th Sunday after Pentecost in the midst of summer. We've already had some stretches of extreme heat and humidity in our neck of the woods, with more to come. Out west, some states have had vicious heat waves - all-time record high temperatures for days on days. 

When it gets hot, we get thirsty.

Perennial advice to combat extreme heat: hydrate. Most of our body consists of water. Extreme heat causes us to lose water. We need water in general. We need more water when it's extremely hot. During these heat waves, if you're thirsty, drink water. It's that simple.

Most of us can manage physical thirst handily. For the most part, we simply turn on a faucet. For those of us with concerns about tap water quality, bottled water does the trick. But there are many other thirsts besides thirst for water. When not referring to the need or desire for water, thirst might indicate desire for many other things like thirst for knowledge, power, revenge...etc. 

Because it's Sunday, we'll switch from our thirst - human thirst - to Divine thirst. Yes, God thirsts too. But He has no need of water, and doesn't desire money, power, revenge, etc. We'll let Bishop Sheen pick it up from here.

“Our Blessed Lord reaches the communion of His Mass when out of the depths of the Sacred Heart there wells the cry: ‘I thirst.’ This was certainly not a thirst for water, for the earth is His and the fullness thereof; it was not a thirst for any of the refreshing droughts of earth…When they offered Him a drink, He took it not. It was another kind of thirst which tortured Him. He was thirsty for the souls and hearts of men. The cry was for communion – the last in a long series of shepherding calls in the quest of God for men. The very fact that it was expressed in the most poignant of all human sufferings, namely, thirst, was the measure of its depth and intensity. Men may hunger for God, but God thirsts for men. He thirsted for man in Creation as He called him to fellowship with divinity in the garden of Paradise; He thirsted for man in Revelation, as He tried to win back man’s erring heart by telling the secrets of His love; He thirsted for man in the Incarnation when He became like the one He loved, and was found in the form and habit of man.

“Now He was thirsting for man in Redemption, for greater love than this no man hath, that he lay down his life for his friends. It was the final appeal for communion before the curtain rang down on the Great Drama of His earthly life. All the myriad loves of parents for children, of spouse for spouse, if compacted into one great love, would have been the smallest fraction of God’s love for man in that cry of thirst. It signified at once, not only how much He thirsted for the little ones, for hungry hearts and empty souls, but also how intense was His desire to satisfy our deepest longing. Really, there should be nothing mysterious in our thirst for God, for does not the hart pant after the fountain, and the sunflower turn to the sun, and the rivers run into the sea? But that He should love us, consider our own unworthiness, and how little our love is worth – that is the mystery! And yet such is the meaning of God’s thirst for communion with us. He had already expressed it in the parable of the Lost Sheep, when He said He was not satisfied with the ninety-nine; only the lost sheep could give Him perfect joy. Now the truth was expressed again from the Cross: Nothing could adequately satisfy His thirst but the heart of every man, woman, and child, who were made for Him, and therefore could never be happy until they found their rest in Him.” (Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen)

To be sure, Our Lord, in His human nature, did thirst. And if you've ever studied the horrors of crucifixion, you would knot that it would be only natural for Him to be thirsty, in the human sense, as he hung on the Cross. But Bishop Sheen focuses our attention on Jesus Our Savior. "He was thirsting for man in Redemption, for greater love than this no man hath, that he lay down his life for his friends." 

Imagine: God wants us, He thirsts for us. Incredible, isn't it?

The next time we feel thirst from this summer's heat, wouldn't it be wonderful if we could recall Our Lord's thirst for us?

Thank you Bishop Sheen!

Happy Sunday!