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Many of us can relate to being hungry or thirsty. It can be difficult to endure and is why many of us are constant snackers, always eating or drinking so that we don't ever have a feeling of thirst or hunger.
This thirst and hunger of ours will never truly be satisfied in this life, and should remind us that in the spiritual life, only God can satisfy our deepest longings.
Source of food and water
St. Columban reflects on this concept in an instruction that is featured in the Office of Readings:
My dear brethren, listen to my words. You are going to hear something that must be said. You quench your soul's thirst with drafts of the divine fountain. I now wish to speak of this. Revive yourself, but do not extinguish your thirst. Drink, I say, but do not entirely quench your thirst, for the fountain of life, the fountain of love calls us to him and says: Whoever thirsts, let him come to me and drink.
He continues his reflection by pointing to Jesus as the fountain of living water:
Understand well what you drink. Jeremiah would tell us; the fountain of life would himself tell us; For they abandoned me, the fountain of living water, says the Lord. The Lord himself, our God Jesus Christ, is the fountain of life, and accordingly he invites us to himself as to a fountain, that we may drink. Whoever loves him, drinks him; he drinks who is filled with the Word of God, he drinks who loves him fully and really desires him. He drinks who is on fire with the love of wisdom.
What's interesting is how God revealed himself as both the fountain and bread of eternal life:
Consider the source of the fountain; bread comes down to us from the same place, since the same one is the bread and the fountain, the only-begotten Son, our God, Christ the Lord, for whom we should always hunger. We may even eat him out of love for him, and devour him out of desire, longing for him eagerly. Let us drink from him, as from a fountain, with an abundance of love. May we drink him with the fullness of desire, and may we take pleasure in his sweetness and savor.
If we feel within us a spiritual hunger or thirst, we should always go to Christ:
If you thirst, drink of the fountain of life; if you are hungry, eat the bread of life. Blessed are they who hunger for this bread and thirst for this fountain, for in so doing they will desire ever more to eat and drink. For what they eat and drink is exceedingly sweet and their thirst and appetite for more is never satisfied. Though it is ever tasted it is ever more desired. Hence the prophet-king says: Taste and see how sweet, how agreeable is the Lord.
May we take to heart these words and recognize, in our own physical hunger, a deeper spiritual hunger that only God can satisfy.
