An ancient invocation to the Heart of Jesus calls it «desire of the eternal hills». It is a phrase taken from the Book of Genesis (Gen 49:26), when Jacob blesses his son Joseph. St. Jerome translated it in a messianic sense: Christ is the one whom all things desire with ardour from the beginning or eternity of time. This is in line with the translation that St. Jerome himself made of a verse from Haggai, calling Christ «the desired of all nations» (Ag 2:7).
Moreover, this one who is «the desired one» is also, as Daniel was said, «a man of desires» (Dan 10:11). Saint Luke notes how Jesus «ardently desired» to give himself up for us (cf. Lk 22:15). And he highlights his impatience for fire to come to the earth (Lk 12:49-50).
The one who is greatly desired: the heart of Jesus is thus shown as a place where the desires of men intersect. We live in a time when desire is on the decline. Above all, that ardent desire that the ancients called eros is on the decline, which did not refer only to the sexual, but to everything that elevates us to the divine. Our time has been defined as «the age of sad passions», because passions that protect themselves against evil predominate. Instead of desire there is aversion or phobia, and instead of hope, there is fear. Can not the Heart of Christ restore to us this desire for greatness?
- To answer, we must remember that desire does not arise by itself in man. It is not an expression of the subjective and unique nature of each one. If there is desire, it is because there is the attraction of a good. As St. Thomas Aquinas said: «love precedes desire». Love occurs when a good touches and attracts us, and then the desire to achieve that good arises. Perhaps our time has forgotten this and has wanted to generate desire from the intimate. That is why desire languishes today, because it has forgotten the beauty that arouses and attracts it.
Well, the Heart of Christ is able to touch us because we perceive its goodness and beauty, so that desire is rekindled. But what touches us is not only something beautiful that attracts us. The ancient Greeks conceived of God as a magnet of beauty who attracts everything, without being attracted himself, because he needs nothing. But in Christianity there is a novelty, because God himself is attracted by man. It is no longer just that «love precedes desire,» but that «God’s desire for us (supreme goodness and beauty) precedes our desire for Him.» We are struck by a love that desires us in advance, because it discovers goodness and beauty in us. Thus is born our desire to respond to love because «love brings out love».
Jesus Christ says it in his priestly prayer: «Father, this is my desire, that those whom you have given me may be with me where I am and behold my glory» (Jn 17:24). It is impressive that Jesus wants me to be with Him. From whom do we deeply desire this: that he may always be with me? Not many. Well, that is Christ’s desire for us, which precedes our desire.
- Christ, by desiring us, awakens our desire for Him. And by uniting ourselves to Christ we learn to desire what He desires. They say, in effect, that desire is mimetic. That is, we desire things because others want them. When a good is highly appreciated by others, it also becomes precious in our eyes. This imitation can cause envy, when we compete for what the other wants; but it is also the force that enables us to desire the same thing together, and thus to desire the union that results from this shared desire. Is not friendship born in this way, when we say: you also see and desire what I see and desire?
By being with Christ, we are infected with his desire, which is the desire for God and the desire for God to reign in the world, that is, the desire for God to be desired and attained. Father Antonio Orbe complained about those who proclaim a second- or third-hand Gospel. What does this mean? It means, in the first place, a Christ of whom I am not a direct friend, but only through the mediation of others. He is a Christ of hearsay, and not of conversation. He is also a cheap Christ, like used things, who does not cost much, but who does not give much either, because we do not let him in all the way in. And he is, above all, a Christ of whom I do not know the origin, just as I do not know the origin and the first history of things used. A Christ is second-hand if the desire of the Father, which moves him from the depths, is not shown in him. Let us not proclaim Christ without at the same time highlighting his passion for God! In this way he will be able to infect us and others with his desire for God, which is the basis of our friendship with him and with each other: to desire together the one God.
Today, as I said before, the desire for God is waning. It is not that he is hated, but that he is indifferent: God does not arouse interest. The Cretan poet Nikos Kazantzakis describes, in his Letter to El Greco, a dialogue with his ancestor. Kazantzakis asks him for an order and he, putting his hand on his shoulder, says: «My son, go as far as you can». Then the poet responds that this order reaches, yes, the brain, but that it does not reach the heart, which is the place of the more, of that which surpasses us. «Give me a more difficult, more Cretan order.» Then a voice shouts to him: «Go as far as you can’t!» When there is so much talk, even in the Church, that we must ask of man only «the possible good», the Heart of Christ puts back in us the desire for that higher good, which we cannot reach on our own.
- Now, isn’t this exaggerated? Isn’t it madness to ask us to «go where we can’t»? The answer is again in the Heart of Christ. For in Him there is not only the desire for God, but the possibility that this desire may find God. Christ has opened the way for human desire to be transformed.
This happens because all man’s desires can be directed to Christ in order to open themselves to God in Him. Jesus said: «When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself» (Jn 12:32; cf. Jer 31:3). Jesus’ phrase can also be translated, as Saint Augustine read it: «I will draw all things to myself». And the bishop of Hippo explained it this way: it will attract all that we are, leaving nothing. It will draw behind it our mind, our life, and also our body, to the hairs of our head. This means that the desire for Christ is deeper than my conscious desires, because it is inscribed in my flesh, and from there it pushes me to reach beyond myself. That is why our desires do not have to abandon their humanity to become God’s desire. St. Augustine adds: it will attract all kinds of men, according to their different languages, ages, social classes, arts and professions… Now, if we desire everything fully, we desire it towards Christ and, with Christ, desire leads us to God.
I was recently reading an interview with the Spanish painter Antonio López. López paints realistic paintings, which try, as he says, to portray life, looking at it with attention and respect. And now he has also received a commission for religious art, for the doors of the cathedral of Burgos, where he has to paint the face of God. And this realist painter tries to do so, because God is real, the foundation of all realism. Antonio López confesses that the face of God is resisting him: «I don’t know how to do it well and we are fighting a lot. But it will come out.» The Cor Iesu festival allows us to conclude this endless search: «we are fighting but it will come out». There is hope because God is desired by desiring the little things in life. And also a cook, for example, can say with Antonio López: «God’s taste resists me. We are fighting a lot. But it will come out.»
Today before the Heart of Christ we can feel the pull of his love, which draws us to himself and to the Father. Richard of St. Victor wrote a work on the four degrees of violent charity, which he describes as a progressive wound, but a saving wound because it pushes towards God. Before the Heart of Christ we feel his wound, which pulls towards God and, for this, pulls towards the Cross of Christ, towards his humility and smallness, towards the love of his brothers and sisters…
But are we not far from this desire? Are we not lacking that attraction by which Christ draws everything to himself and to his Cross? It is characteristic of the human desire to be able to transform oneself. Let us remember what Saint Ignatius of Loyola asked of those who had no desire to follow Christ in everything: that they at least have a desire for desires. Unlike animals, we can wish for our desires to be transformed. The Heart of Christ, «patient and of great mercy», opens a path of transformation of desire. Thus, the movement of desire is not measured according to its satisfaction, which closes it in on itself; but according to his expansion, which allows him to desire more, even to desire God himself. What we ask of the Cor Iesu today is, therefore: that he give us a desire to know him, to love him, to follow him in order to, with him, rejoice the Father.