“I thirst,” Jesus said in John 19:28. Imagine how physically thirsty Jesus was on the Cross!
Having lost most of His Precious Blood, having eaten or drunk nothing for many hours, having carried the Cross up Calvary, the Lord was completely dehydrated beyond anything we can imagine.
One of the Seven Last Words, this cry for water from the parched lips of the Son of God, represents, however, a far broader spiritual reality than physical thirst.
In this month’s edition of Magnificat, Caryll Houselander writes, “His body was dried up with the terrible thirst that comes from the loss of blood, and his soul thirsted for the people he was bleeding for, and his heart thirsted for the compassion of his own people.”
St. Laurence Justinian said, “His thirst arose from the ardor of his love, from the depth and abundance of his charity. He was thirsting for us, thirsting to give himself to us and suffer for us.”
A thirst for love
Christ has a burning, thirsting desire for our love, devotion, attention, and service.
As much as we may want a deep and transforming relationship with God, the Lord wants this on an infinite level. He is thirsting for our love.
Is this desire not true in any human relationship? When we truly love someone, we long for our love to be reciprocated.
We want to know that the other person loves us as much as we love them.
How many songs, books, poems, and films narrate the pathos of unrequited love?
To understand that it profoundly matters to Jesus Christ whether we love Him back or not is a major touchstone of conversion.
Because we cannot talk to and see God the way we can relate to other people, we may think that He is indifferent to us.
If I do not practice the faith, go to Mass, or pray, the Lord does not reproach me over the telephone.
When I do pray and receive the sacraments, I may not always feel His presence or consolation.
The Lord is often very quiet, and this silence may lead me to erroneously conclude that my religious practice does not affect Him that much. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Last Sunday’s Gospel narrated the woman at the well who encountered the Lord when she went to draw water.
Like this Samaritan, we often go to many worldly wells to seek satisfaction, love, consolation, and meaning.
The lure of wealth, comfort, sensuality, and pleasure will always leave us more thirsty than ever if we seek to slake our desire with the things of this life.
Only Christ, in His love, mercy, and salvation, can heal, fulfill, and save us. Only He can give us what we are truly looking for.
When we believe, love, and serve Him, the Holy Spirit becomes a living fountain within us, welling up to eternal life.
The woman came looking for earthly water to satisfy her needs; Jesus came in search of the woman, to whom He offered the eternal and lasting water of the Spirit.
Contemplating ‘thirst’
In every one of the chapels of the Missionaries of Charity, St. Mother Teresa’s Order of Sisters, right next to the crucifix, are the words, “I thirst!”
Mother wanted her sisters to contemplate the terrible thirst of Christ on the Cross — His thirst for souls, for love, for compassion, and for faith.
The hours which the Sisters spent in Mass and in meditation before the Blessed Sacrament spiritually prepared them to go forth into the poverty and misery of the world, to satisfy that divine thirst by loving and serving the poorest of the poor.
In the distressing disguise of the needy and suffering, Jesus becomes the hungry One, the thirsty One, the rejected One, the One who is reaching out for our time, attention, and love.
Mother Teresa would often say that it was not necessary to go to Calcutta to discover poverty. “Calcutta is all around us, if we have the eyes to see.”
Who is it in our lives who is thirsting for attention, dignity, love, and mercy? Who is lonely, broken, and suffering?
We think of the millions of people around the world whose poverty is beyond our imagination — earthquake victims in Turkey, Ethiopians reeling from a long drought, Haitians in a country controlled by gangs, or Ukrainians reeling from a terrible and unjust war.
I serve on the board of Catholic Relief Services and recently learned that more than 40 million people globally face malnutrition and starvation.
They are our brothers and sisters. How can we help them?
In our sacramental and prayer life, in our evangelizing efforts, in our service to the poor, needy, and lonely, in our love for our families and friends, how do we satisfy the thirst of Jesus Christ who longs for our love, compassion, and generosity?
The saints could literally see Christ in every person they met. We pray for that same grace as we move towards another Holy Week.