In every issue of Magnificat there are always a few of the daily meditations that I want to remember, so I tear out the pages and put them in a file. I was several issues behind on this task and found these quotations while catching up on it a few days ago.
The hopelessness all around us is endless; its bitter fullness is inexhaustible, as manifold as all the life that has fallen away from the heart of God: the hopelessness of the suffering that wounds and tires, of the narrowness that constricts our sight and breathing, of the yearning that pines away, of the unalleviated pain, of the tormenting sin, and of the weakness that is powerless to rise again. The hopelessness of the dreariness when the heart knows no joy and no pain; when the days are empty and silent and everything that happens is meaningless; when one knows what life would be like if one could only love but cannot love, and when one’s soul thirsts within and goes about as in a barren and dry land—is there any power sufficient to overcome this power?
…Do you realize that…[the Holy Spirit] can come like a gentle breath…and that he can touch your soul and make everything different? What was real before still remains, yet everything has been renewed. Then you become aware that you have a heart and that you, too have received the ability to love, and things are filled with a gentle and holy meaning, and you know that everything is good and that it is worthwhile—divinely worthwhile—to be alive and to persevere?
—Romano Guardini
Christ, the source of life, addressed his clear call to all generations: “If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink.” Only one condition is laid down: to thirst.
—Fr. M.M. Philipon, O.P.
I think many of us have had the experience described in the first passage. And how many people do we know who suffer from that terrible thirst, made worse by the absence of any hope that their longing can ever be satisfied? If I ask and hope to achieve one thing in my life, it is that I might be an instrument assisting one of these toward the living water. That’s my prayer for this new year.
Light On Dark Water 
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