The Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)

February 9, 2003

Saint Anselm Abbey Church Fr. Bede Camera, OSB

Looking for love in all the wrong places

[Mark 1:29-39]

This scenario appears a couple of times in the Gospels. Jesus goes away to a private place to pray.

But the need of the people is so great that they come after him, and press in on him. As the apostles say to

him, "Everyone is looking for you."

Is that still true? "Everyone is looking for him?" Is it true for you? How about those who don't know

Christ? Could it be that deep down inside, ultimately, He is what--or who--they are searching for? How

about those around you who know about Christ but who haven't really yet gotten in touch with the

incredible unfathomable love that he wants to pour into their lives?

Again, how about you? At the end of the day, during those times when you are alone and silent

. . . are you searching for him? Have you found him? And if not, have you found happiness in something

or someone, or is there still an emptiness, a restlessness that simply will not go away, a restlessness that

makes it difficult if not impossible for you to rest in peace in solitude and in silence?

Saint Augustine spoke of that restlessness. "Lord, oOur hearts are restless, until they rest in you," he

wrote. And the Church states the same notion in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 27.

Listen to what it says:

"The desire for God is written in the human heart, because we is created by God and for

God; and God never ceases to draw us to himself. Only in God will we find the truth and happiness

we never stops searching for."

Consider the implications of that statement: Our lives are a never-ending search for peace and

happiness, which, ultimately, we will find only in God. We will never find it anywhere else. No matter

where we look: we won't find it in other people, in things, in fame, fortune, success, comfort, pleasure,

fun. Don't take my--or the Church's word--for it: Check out the validity of this statement in your own

life? Have you found a lasting peace and happiness, the kind that will never leave you or let you down?

Have you found it in any other person, thing, idea, concept, philosophy or lifestyle?

Or are you still restless? Are you always trying to get somewhere other than where you are? Is most of

your activity just a means to an end? Is fulfillment always just around the corner or confined to shortlived

pleasures, such as sex, food, drinik, drugs or thrills and excitement? Are you always focused on

becoming, achieving and attaining, or alternatively chasing some new thrill or pleasure? Do you believe

that if you acquire more things you will become more fulfilled, good enough, or psychologically

complete? Are you waiting for a man or woman to give meaning to your life?1

To borrow the words of a well-known song, are you "looking for love in all the wrong places?" That song

came out in 1980 and was written by Johnny Lee. I got the information from the Internet by typing the

titles into a Google search. There were lots of links: I had to go through 18 pages before I found the

information I was looking for. Interestingly enough, in all those pages three types of links kept coming

up.

The first was links to sermons on various texts from the Scriptures, all texts which tell you that

you are loved totally and utterly by God in Christ, even to the point of death, and that love is available to

you at every moment of your life--including right now--if you are willing to reach out for it and let it in,

and how that love will never let you down, never abandon you, never disappoint you, and how Christ, in

his love for you, wants to touch and to fill and to heal every aching or empty corner and crevice of your

being. In essence, what these sites were doing was showing you how to find love in all the right places.

2

There were other offers as well. The second type of links that popped up were links to personals

ads and chat rooms. One of them even advertised, "Looking for love in all the wrong places? Come to our

chat room, where you'll find true love."

Curiously enough, the third type of link pointed to sites offering help to those trying to recover from sex

and love addiction. One of those sites said, "Millions of Americans suffer from it; few are willing to

admit it." Hmmmm. Maybe that's a good message for Valentine's Day. If it intrigues you, just type "sex

and love addiction" into a search engine and see where it leads you.

Addiction. The disease of a society which has forgotten to search for peace and happiness, and

love, in God. It doesn't matter what the addiction: it could be alcohol, drugs, sex, romance, food, fame,

power, work. The mechanism is always the same. There is a hunger in us, an emptiness that can only be

satisfied by God. And if we try to fill that emptiness, if we try to satisfy that hunger in any other way, we

end up bringing pain on ourselves, and often on others.

In fact, in our addictions, we become the blind, the lame, the diseased, the outcast, we become those

whose lives get taken over by dark, dangerous and destructive forces--in other words, we become those

possessed by demons. We become that group of people who were being brought to the Lord for healing,

those of whom it was said, "Everyone is looking for you."

"Everyone is looking for you." The problem is that most people aren't aware of it - unless we,

unless you make them aware. Most people don't realize that the love that they're searching for can only

be had in God, and therefore, in Jesus Christ.

Notice this: God builds on our human needs: The ultimate love is found in a relationship with a

person. That's the beauty of our religion. We're not after some idea, or some dogma, or some philosophy.

We are not merely a "People of the Book," as we're often mistakingly called. No. We are a people of the

Person. And that person is Jesus Christ. Seeking relationship with us and for us. That is how God has

come to us, and, as the Catechism says, that is how and why God "never ceases to draw us to himself."

Now, this is not to say that we can't find proper enjoyment, and either pleasure, in the mamy

good things that life has to offer, or that we can't find love in a human relationship. But it matters whether

or not those things point us to the ultimate goodness--which is God himself. Those things are meant to be

signs for us of the love of God, they're meant to be the things that point us beyond themselves to a greater

and transcendant Reality. This is true even of human love relationships, even of marriages. It has been

said that a true love relationship isn't about two people staring deeply into each other's eyes, bt rather is

present when two people are standing hand in hand and looking together in the same direction. And that

direction? Well, consider two promises that are found in Scripture:

The first: "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all things will be given you besides."

The second: "Take your delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart."

Again, verify the truth of these promises through personal experience. Check them out in your own life.

Personally, I find that the are true, that when I live according to these promises, I am at peace and things

begin to fall into place, but when I ignore them and seek my delight or my meaning elsewhere, then I get

wounded, or crippled or sick.

Fortunately, at times like that, there is someone I can always go to again for healing. How about you?

1 Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now. New York: New World Library, 1999. p. 49.