I find it curious that since I have started the sharing process with you wonderful people that I frequently trip over a rock in one of the readings and I end up rolling the rock around for a while to understand why it tripped me. The rock this week comes from the second reading last Saturday. St. Thomas Aquinas who considers why it is there is no complete satisfaction of desire in this life. He quotes St. Augustine, “You (God) have made us for yourself, Lord, and our heart can find no rest until it rests in you.”
I have long wondered why we can’t achieve a lasting fulfillment. We can have periods of time, both long and short, where we are completely satisfied. Then one day – and often times for no apparent reason- we wake up to discover that our head has been screwed on crooked and we are back to square one. God created us with a built in fail safe device to keep us from getting complacent or comfortable. The restlessness we feel stirs us to action, it drives us search and question and that same restlessness keeps us focused on moving forward toward our more complete union with him after death.
The notion that we will not know rest until we rest in him is not a downer. Instead it reduces my fear of death because the promise of resting him after death is far more attractive to me than being complacent in ignorance in this world.
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