It is a commonplace that contemporary culture finds the epitome of love in sex, and there is perhaps no greater fear today than being ultimately alone, without some other person who can speak into the voids of the human heart. Our desires know no limits, and the capacity of every sexual partner will always fall short of offering a truly satisfying and everlasting fullness. As a result, we frequently accommodate ourselves to feelings of loneliness and try to avoid long glances at what, deep down, we know is our common plight.
Thankfully, a Christian sees love differently, and the Saints of the Church often point us to a love that is epitomized not in sex but in friendship. This love accepts the boundaries of another person and yet pushes him to excel beyond the limits of his own virtue. Looking past the creature, friends of this sort seek satisfaction in God the Creator and so find themselves journeying through life no longer alone but alongside a whole company of men and women who have a single destination of limitless fulfillment. It can almost seem too good to be true, and we can forgive those among us who have settled into despair and admit that this is altogether different from anything they have experienced here on earth.
Then again, today’s Gospel points not to the glory of heaven but to the most common experiences: knocking on a door, seeking what is lacking, and asking someone for what we don’t have already. Our neediness need not be an affliction but can instead point us away from ourselves towards those friends that God, in his unfathomable providence, places among us to cheer us up, encourage us, and at times even carry us along the way. Most surprising of all, God even approaches us and asks us to receive him in the Most Holy Eucharist through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Let us never tire of fulfilling God’s command to seek, to knock, and to ask so that the community of the Saints may grow to include even those of us who are most miserable, most discouraged, and most alone.