The Sacred Romance: Redirecting Your Passions and Desires
(Adapted From Act Twenty-Six of the Claymore Battle Plan Handbook)
By Jack Rigert
“Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new… You were within me, but I was outside…”—Saint Augustine
You were born into a story of awe and wonder, a story of passion and desire, of meaning and purpose.
Saint Augustine, though he spent years running from it, eventually discovered that this story was part of God’s plan. In his youth, he chased pleasure and self-indulgence wherever he could find it. He lived for fifteen years with a woman he never married and fathered a son out of wedlock. Yet even in that rebellion and restlessness, God was at work, quietly writing redemption into his story. One day, Augustine heard the Gospel proclaimed and everything began to change. From his own journey, he would later write the famous words, “Our hearts are restless, O Lord, until they rest in you” (Confessions, book 1).
He discovered that the very passions and desires that once led him astray were not evil in themselves. When oriented toward the truth and the beauty of God’s love, they became the very path to his transformation. This is why Augustine would later exclaim, “Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new… You were within me, but I was outside!” (Confessions, book X). Augustine learned something most men never grasp. Desire itself is not the enemy. What destroys us is not longing but disordered longing. God does not extinguish eros. He heals it, purifies it, and elevates it toward its true horizon. Every human heart is made for infinity, and when infinite desires are chased through finite pleasures, frustration, and bondage follow. Grace does not amputate passion. It redeems it.
Brothers and sisters, life happens in the blink of an eye. I can look back and remember moments of my own youth as vividly as if they happened last week. Those memories never fade because they shaped me deeply. My own search for truth was marked by mistakes, self-indulgence, failure, and pain, the kind of pain that comes not only from your own wounds but from the wounds you inflict on others. In those years, I did not yet realize that moral truth was real and unchanging. Like many young men, I thought freedom meant living however I wanted. But when my life collided with the hard wall of truth, the injuries were real, both for me and for those I hurt. Life became a battlefield, the choice between entering the broad, easy gate or seeking something more and striving for the narrow gate. Jesus warns us in the Gospel of Matthew:
“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few” (Matt 7:13-14).
There came a moment for me when, at the end of yet another dead-end path, I finally understood that the broad gate was leading nowhere. I made the decision to enter the narrow gate, and just in time. Because life, my friends, truly happens in the blink of an eye. When a man is young, countless paths stretch before him. One common temptation is to live only for pleasure, to sow wild oats with the idea that later you will grow up, settle down, and get serious about life. But it does not work that way. Your life now is already laying the foundation for your future.
There is nothing wrong with enjoying life. In fact, there is great joy in living with passion and a sense of adventure. Soon, I will tell you about Pier Giorgio Frassati, a young man who lived life to the fullest, not by seeking pleasure alone, but by seeking the greatest adventure of all, eternal love. His short life was full of self-giving love and deep joy.
Many young men and women share with me their dreams of finding the right person. But here is the hard truth. Very few of them have done the work of becoming the right person themselves. And so, when the person of their dreams appears, they are rejected. Why? Because that other person is also looking for the right person. To these young men and women Saint John Paul II gave this urgent counsel: “Dear young people, pay attention. Your life is not an endless series of open doors. Listen to your heart. Do not stay on the surface but go to the heart of things. And when the time is right, have the courage to decide.”
Youth is a time of growth. This growth is more than just physical. It includes the growth of your mind, your heart, and your soul. The Gospel of Luke tells us only a few words about Jesus’ youth, though they cover nearly thirty years of His hidden life with Mary and Joseph: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man.” You may know people who are very intelligent, even experts in their field, yet they lack wisdom. Knowledge by itself is not enough. Wisdom is a gift of God, the ability to see your life, your achievements, and your desires within the larger story of God’s plan. Saint John of the Cross taught that true wisdom is found when one becomes a person of love, rooted in silence, prayer, and detachment from the world. That does not mean abandoning life, but rather fasting from vice and materialism so that love can grow.
I remember a time just before I fully said yes to Christ. I feared that following Him would mean giving up my eros, my passions and desires. Would I still be a man if I no longer felt desire when I saw a woman. One day, kneeling in a chapel before the Holy Family, I meditated on the Blessed Mother. I pictured Mary kneeling at the foot of the Cross, and I also thought of her fiat, her yes at the Annunciation. In that moment, the Holy Spirit filled her womb with the life of God Himself. It struck me that, in our own way, when we say yes to Christ, our own body and soul become impregnated with Jesus. Becoming impregnated with Christ means becoming one with Him.
Indeed, the Lord Jesus, when He prayed to the Father, ‘that all may be one…as we are one’ (John 17:21-22) opened up vistas closed to human reason, for He implied a certain likeness between the union of the divine Persons, and the unity of God’s sons in truth and love. This likeness reveals that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through becoming a sincere gift of himself (Gaudium et Spes, no. 24).
This is not brain surgery. To become the right person you must be united to the Right Person. Just as Jesus climbed the marriage bed of the Cross to pour Himself out as a sincere gift of self for you, you are in turn to receive His gift and then turn to your neighbor and become a sincere gift of self. This action fulfills the two great commandments, love of God and love of neighbor. Jesus is passionate about you, and He does not want you to lose or suppress your passions and desires. He gave them to you. He wants to redirect what has been misdirected. That is what the saints and mystics do. Consider Saint Teresa of Avila. She was a woman of intense longing for God. She once described a vision that inspired Bernini’s famous sculpture, The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. In her words:
Beside me, on the left, appeared an angel in bodily form…. He was very beautiful, and his face was so aflame that he appeared to be one of the highest rank of angels, who seem to be all on fire…. In his hands I saw a great golden spear, and at the iron tip there appeared to be a point of fire. This he plunged into my heart several times so that it penetrated to my very core. When he pulled it out, I felt that he took it with him, and left me utterly consumed by the great love of God. The pain was so severe that it made me utter several moans. The sweetness caused by this intense pain is so extreme that one cannot possibly wish it to cease, nor is one’s soul content with anything but God.
This is what it means to be consumed with love for God. It is eros transformed into agape, divine sacrificial love, desire purified and elevated into the deepest kind of love. Do you have a desire for something more. A longing that no experience, achievement, or relationship in this world can fully satisfy. Good. That desire points you toward the Sacred Romance, the invitation to enter into and become one with God’s eternal love. C. S. Lewis captured this truth beautifully:
Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. If I discover within myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world (Mere Christianity, Book III, Chapter 10).
You were made for that other world. You were made for love that does not fade, for joy that never ends. The question is, will you have the courage to say yes to Jesus Christ who invites you to an intimacy that sounds too good to be true, but is in fact the very logic of our Christian faith. In other words, do you have the courage, the passion, and the desire to become the “right person”?
In ACT Twenty-Seven, C. S. Lewis is going to bring this all home for us. In the meantime, I hope that you are following the Claymore 10-Minute morning ritual and praying with your temptations! We are all tempted, even Jesus was tempted by Satan in the desert. If properly understood, your temptations can lead you to the promised land.
Reflection and Discussion
- Jesus calls us to enter through the narrow gate. What broad gates in your life tempt you away from the path of holiness.
(Read Matthew 7:13-14). - Think about your current relationships and friendships. Are you focused on becoming the right person or just finding the right person.
(Read 1 Corinthians 13:1-13). - Reflect on your deepest desires. Which of them point you toward God, and which lead you away from Him.
(Read Psalm 37:4. Pick up a copy of Mere Christianity and get familiar with C. S. Lewis).
