Many of our older generation might still remember the Hollywood “sex goddess” Marylene Monroe of the 1950s? Monroe had everything – beauty, fame, money – but despite all this, deep down she was unhappy and her life empty. One morning she was found dead in her room. She had committed suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills.
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Then there was the rock-and-roll star Elvis Presley who went on to make dozens of Gold Records, send millions of hysterical fans into ululations of delight, and gross US$1 billion in earnings – before he died at the young age of 42, in August, 1977. He died of an excess of drugs and junk food.
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Modern psychiatry’s files are loaded with cases of persons who have managed to acquire everything they thought they needed to make them happy, except peace of soul.
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In this Third Sunday of Lent, Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman coming to the well to draw water. Jesus asks her for water to drink. The woman was taken aback since it was forbidden for a Jew to speak to a Samaritan because the Jews considered the Samaritans unclean.
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Jesus said, “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you…he would have given you living water” (Jn 4,10).
Jesus added, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst” (Jn 4,13).
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Jesus was talking about water of the Spirit that quenches human thirst that lasts to eternal life with God.
Celebrities, like Marylene Monroe and Elvis Presley, tried looking for that water but unfortunately, could not find it in worldly pleasures, fame, wealth, and drugs.
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I have known a doctor, a specialist in gynecology, who became a priest. “Perhaps you did it,” I kidded, “because you ran out of clients, you being male!” He replied, “No, it’s because I had always wanted to become a priest.”
There are other lay professionals who say the same: “Though I don’t receive a high pay now, I’m much happier serving the Lord directly.”
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Material and physical needs cannot satisfy us. Only God can. And this is what St. Augustine discovered after a long and tortuous search for true fulfillment. “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”
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ST. JOSEPH. Tomorrow, March 20, is the feast of St. Joseph, the husband of the Blessed Mother and patron of the universal Church.
Because he was the material provider of the Holy Family, St. Joseph is the patron of those who are financially needy.
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So, pray to St. Joseph for financial help, especially for those who have AIDS, not sexually-transmitted sickness, but “Acute Income Deficiency Syndrome.” In local parlance, “palaging kinakapos sa pera.”
Also, he is the patron saint of the dying. Don’t forget to pray to him for a good and peaceful death.
