MAN OF DESIRE

The Orthodox theologian Paul Evdokimov wrote that «monastic life finds its explanation in the thirst for God. If we seek clarification, we can say that it is the degree of intensity of this desire and this thirst». This statement, so profound and suggestive, which well captures the heart of monasticism, is rooted in the biblical humus. In fact, in Gen 2:7 we read that God “formed man (…) and man became a desiring living being”, according to the Hebrew nefesh chajjah. Desire, a constitutive element of Adam, thus becomes the hermeneutic key to understanding who man is, the reason for his being here and now, and the end that awaits him. Can Saint Augustine’s statement perhaps be surprising then: “You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you”? Augustine makes us understand that desire is the capacity for self-transcendence, a yearning to go beyond borders, to use a metaphor dear to the poet Renzo Barsacchi. Desire, in essence, finds its ultimate “pull” in the Desired One, God, “whose face” – wrote Therese of Lisieux – “is my only homeland”, but it also marks an immediate “pull” towards man, a visible icon of him. We understand, the monk is an archetype – to quote Raimon Panikkar. Every man aspires to what we can define as the penultimate outcome of his life: being; and to the final outcome: God, his native Source. In this regard, v.11 of Psalm 86 (85): «Keep my heart united», is translated in the Greek version of Aquila as: «Make my heart a monk». At this point I would dare to say that the monastic vocation is an anthropological universal that even precedes the choice of a confession of faith whether Christian or Buddhist or Hindu or even, paradoxically, atheist (atheism is also a faith). This is what drove generations and generations of monks and nuns first into the desert of the hermitage and then into the monasteries. It was certainly not the search for perfection or a misinterpreted fuga mundi; not the anxiety of saving the great cultural heritage from the barbarian hordes or the inability to create a family with responsibility and commitment. None of this, but just a great passion for God, and the attempt to respond to the great desires that run through the human heart. Saint Gregory the Great writes that Saint Benedict: «Leaving aside his literary education, even abandoning his home with his father’s possessions, desiring to please only God, he sought the holy habit of monastic life. He withdrew from the world, knowingly unaware of and knowingly lacking in the science of the world” (IID, 1). Read superficially these words may lead one to think that Saint Benedict retreated into solitude out of contempt for the world. In reality he refuses, yes, but only to affirm; affirm that he has found the precious pearl compared to which everything appears blurred and, in any case, everything is reread and welcomed in this light. This pearl is Jesus Christ. Desire, let us never forget, verticalizes us, and therefore makes us men. A verse by Turoldo comes to mind that says:

You, God, are the moaning
of nature in its totality,
the desire that makes us look upwards;
you are the lifelong passion to exist.

Commentary by b. Sandro Carotta, osb
Abbazia di Praglia (Italy)

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves,
Prinknash Abbey