Hunger and Thirst

In this episode, I share a personal hiking adventure in the Austrian Alps, which serves as a metaphor for our spiritual journey. Unprepared and facing physical hunger, I draw parallels to the Israelites’ experience in the Book of Exodus and the crowd seeking Jesus for sustenance. Reflecting on my own spiritual dryness as a Carmelite student, I emphasise the importance of seeking a genuine relationship with God rather than past experiences or material fulfilment. Join me as we explore how true satisfaction comes from embracing our spiritual hunger and deepening our connection with God.

00:00:00  Many years ago, I was travelling through Europe with a friend (another seminarian at that stage), and we went to visit another friend of mine who was studying in Liechtenstein. But he was staying in Austria, and so we went and stayed with him for a few days, and he had to go and study. But he said, oh, look, there’s a wonderful mountain that I think you, you and Andrew should go and climb. And so we drove there and kind of set off And I hadn’t been kind of, you know, thinking that that was what the day was going to bring. And so I hadn’t really prepared for that. And so it took us about three hours, I guess, to climb to the top of this mountain. And like so many Austrian mountains, there was a wonderful cross on the top, you know, marking the Christian identity. And we were just admiring the views that we had over the Alps. See, from there, back across into Switzerland and so forth.

00:00:59  It was, you know, quite a wonderful spot. But then we realised that it was well past lunchtime now and we didn’t bring any food or water with us. And so we were like, I think we better cut a scurry back down so we can get back to the car and go off and find somewhere to eat. But thankfully, at least as we were kind of making our way much more quickly than the three hours it took us to get up the mountain to. We were able to find little streams and kind of figured that was pretty natural kind of environment. So the water was probably going to be reasonably safe to drink. But that feeling of being out in the wilderness, being a long way from civilization and knowing that we weren’t prepared and we were hungry and thirsty. This is heavy work that we’ve been doing to climb the mountain to get here. And many other times in my life I’ve been equally well, perhaps not that quite unprepared for the situation and the experience, but that sense of of being in a place and feeling the hunger, feeling the thirst, you know, the feeling, that sense of being trapped and and just going, oh my gosh, where are we going to find food in this desolate place? So we get the sense of both the people of God there in the book of Exodus.

00:02:15  You know, they hadn’t been long in the wilderness at this stage. It has only been a few weeks, maybe a month, since they had escaped from the slavery of Egypt. And they were so hard pressed when they were there in Egypt: we had all the food that we wanted to eat. Well, I don’t think that was really true. It was a very Bountiful place, the place where they had established themselves there. And Goshen was a place of much bounty. There was fresh water, there was abundant food that they could grow and harvest and so forth. But they were still enslaved. They were at the beck and call of the Egyptian overlords. So it wasn’t a wonderful experience for them. And yet their memories, you know how often we’re like that. Oh, remember the good old days? I don’t remember the good old days. The old days were awful kind of things. And yet we can so easily kind of get lost in that romantic kind of ideal.

00:03:14  But now, as they find their freedom, it comes with this price tag that they’re there in the wilderness, for sure, but they’re not able to eat. They hadn’t brought enough supplies with them to last the length of time. They were thinking that it would only be a few weeks, that they would be there before they made their way into the Promised Land, but it turned out to be a whole lot longer than just the few weeks that they had prepared for. And so they’re hungering, thirsting, longing for the food that they are able to eat. Just like the crowd that we saw last week that they’re hearing the teaching of Jesus being fed and nourished by his Word. But they also needed to be provided with the food to eat. And now they’ve made their way across the lake again, not to a desolate place now, but to a village to the town of Capernaum, a place where there was food available, but they still wanting the same thing. Oh, Lord, remember last time you fed us and you gave us all that we needed, and we can so often, you know, get great mileage from the great events of the past.

00:04:22 Those times when we did feel that closeness to the Lord. And we can go back, not so much for the Lord himself, but for the experience of that. I mean, it was a lesson that I had to learn when I was a student elsewhere, when I was a Carmelite student. And I remember this particular day I had had this most beautiful and amazing sense of God’s presence. When I sat there in the two hours of individual prayer that we had each day. And, you know, most of the time that time of prayer was pretty distracted. And I was in my head hot. We’re all over the place. But this particular day, I just had this sense of just being in the presence of the one who loved me so much, this profound sense of the presence of God in my life. And so the next day when I went back, I was like, Lord, I can do all that again. Thank you very much. You know, just bring whatever it happened yesterday, bring it all on again.

00:05:17  And I remember my spiritual director at the time going, no, no, no, he’s never going to respond to that request. If we want the experience, all we will get is dryness. We will never be able to encounter it again. What we need to do is move beyond the experience into the presence, into God Himself. It’s only when we long and seek for God that we have our heart’s desires. And so the people today, you know, we’re confused by all of those experiences. They simply wanted more signs, more miracles. They were not looking for God and for the love that Jesus was able to bring them into. They wanted this experience. They wanted this sense of having their tummies filled. So Jesus is saying, yes, you know, I will be there for you when you hunger and thirst. I want to be the one who will satisfy your deepest desires. I will be there to provide all of your needs. But how will you do this? You know the final lines of our gospel today.

00:06:14  Give us that answer. For anyone who comes to me will never hunger again. Anyone who believing in me will never thirst. That’s how we find our fulfillment. That’s how we can answer those deep questions that we have in our heart. Coming to the Lord, resting in his presence. Allowing that love to be enough to hold us and to sustain us. But if we simply hunger for the things of this world, our hearts will never be satisfied. We will never be filled. So today, let’s really get in touch with those deeper desires that are there within us to experience the presence of the God who is calling us, inviting us into that place of freedom and life, wanting us so hunger for God. We have been hungry when we’ve been without food for some time. You know, just that sense that we have. It’s why we fast before we celebrate the Eucharist. So just to have some sense of that hunger that is there within us that we long for God, that we long for the gift of the Lord.

00:07:16  So we go without an hour. We’re not going to be hungry over the course of just one hour. But it provides a sense of what we’re truly wanting within our life. Let’s indeed long place our desires and our trust in the God who’s always there, providing the best of everything because he cares for he loves us, and he wants us to experience the very best indeed. Hunger and thirst for the God of all goodness.