February 24, 2016
“Let me seek you
In my desire,
Let me desire you
In my seeking.
Let me find you
By loving you,
Let me love you
When I find you.”
St. Anselm, Proslogion, 1.
It may come as a surprise that not a single one of these are automatic. It should not. If they were, St. Anselm wouldn’t have bothered praying them and his peers wouldn’t have bothered writing it down and continuing to pray them. If they were automatic, it wouldn’t be necessary to remind ourselves of them.
They are choices that we make daily or more. Or they are not the choices that we are making daily or more.
It is only when we see that God is present at these various depths all at once, that we see that we are indeed free to seek him while desiring something else, or that we desire him while seek something else. We must desire that he become the inspiration of the seeking and the object of the seeking. In that unfolding search, we must desire him. Finding him doesn’t mean loving him unless we also pray and choose that when we find we also have the courage to love.