Today is Friday, August 1, the Memorial of St. Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church.
We read at today’s Mass, “Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and in his own house.’ And he did not work many mighty deeds there because of their lack of faith” (Mt 13:58).
As we begin the month of August, I invite you to reflect with me on the theme of thirst — a deep, interior longing for God. It’s the theme we’ve chosen for this month’s issue of Our Sunday Visitor magazine, and it’s one that resonates throughout the life of the Church, especially in the witness of St. Augustine, whose feast we will celebrate later this month. Augustine understood well what it meant to desire God with one’s whole being.
Today’s Gospel presents us with a startling mystery: Jesus did not work many mighty deeds in his hometown. Why? Because of the people’s lack of faith — their lack of thirst for him. They were too familiar, too closed off, too indifferent.
Seeking God’s will
St. Alphonsus Liguori gives us a powerful model for what it means to thirst for God. He once wrote: “Matters that affect us personally — hunger, thirst, poverty, desolation, lack of reputation — let us always say: ‘Do thou build up or tear down, O Lord, as seems good in Thy sight.'” What a radical prayer of trust! Do to me, Lord, whatever seems good to you. I want only what you want.
Alphonsus, one of the Church’s greatest moral theologians, taught that even a single act of conformity to God’s will can make a saint. He points to St. Paul as the great example of this, a life wholly given to God’s purposes.
To conform our will to God’s means joining our hearts to his. It means willing only what God wills. This is the essence of holiness. This is what it means to thirst for God: to want nothing more and nothing less than his will.
Let us begin this month with a simple prayer: Lord, may your will alone be my will.
Let us pray,
O God, who constantly raise up in your Church new examples of virtue, grant that we may follow so closely in the footsteps of the Bishop Saint Alphonsus in his zeal for souls as to attain the same rewards that are his in heaven. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.
