What Reward Do You Want?

Homily for Friday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

In the Broadway musical “Camelot,” Lancelot sings: “If I had been the partner of Eve, we’d be in Eden still.” Of course, that is before he falls in love with Guinevere. Adam and Eve fail because they were not satisfied with what they had been given.

After writing on the Eucharist, St. Thomas Aquinas entered into a great ecstasy. He then heard a voice from the crucifix on the altar say: “You have written well of me, Thomas; what reward will you have?” St. Thomas’ reply was: “Non nisi Te, Domine. Non nisi te. (Nothing but you, Lord. Nothing but you).” In the end, none of the goods of this life, even profound intellectual genius such as St. Thomas’, or wealth, talents, power, and all other manner of things can bring us our ultimate fulfillment. These are goods that reflect the goodness of God, but they are not God. It is God for whom we long. It is God who made us for happiness. And it is God who will ask us at the end of our lives what reward we desire. The hope is that we will answer: “Nothing but you, Lord.” St. Thomas’ answer is the answer of a saint. God is our ultimate reward.

St. Thomas is not the only saint who has expressed his desire for God. We remember St. Augustine who famously said, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” St. Ignatius of Loyola prayed, “Take Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. You have given all to me. To You, O Lord, I return it. All is yours, dispose of it wholly according to your will. Give me your love and your grace, for this is sufficient for me.”

In fact, every saint has expressed the same desire at one time or another in his or her lifetime.

Though we have all been washed clean of the Original Sin of Adam and Eve, we still live with its effects. All of us have experienced a desire for something or other than God. We would not be human were this not so. However, we also have been given the grace to put aside such desires. Each day that we receive the Eucharist, our desire for God is complete. It is God’s ultimate gift. May we always cherish it.