Do you remember how the gospel of St. John begins? There is that wonderful and immensely beautiful prologue: “In the beginning was the word, and the word was God ... And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us.”

Then John begins to tell his story and it’s a story that has been repeated again and again and again. Here are two young fellows catching fish on the Sea of Galilee and they are saying to each other, “You know, there’s got to be more to life than catching fish.”  Then one day they hear about some fellow out east; it’s always out east for some reason. And they decide, “Let’s go: maybe he’s got some answers.”

They find this character, he’s out there in the midst of a crowd wearing a camel skin, chewing on grasshoppers, proclaiming his message.  They ask, “Are you the one? Do you have the answers?”  The Baptiser, who was a very humble and honest man, said, “No, no. I’m not the one. But wait. He’s coming.”

So John and Andrew waited and they saw the crowds come and go.  They saw the Baptiser teaching and baptising. Then, one day, suddenly, the Baptiser looked up, over the heads of the crowd, and cried out, “Look! Look! There! There is the Lamb of God!”  With that John and Andrew took off. They came running up behind Jesus and Jesus turned to them. We have here Jesus’ first recorded words to us, his disciples, “What do you want?

Why did God make us? Oh, don’t give me the old Catechism answer. Why did God make us? The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, they were having an eternal ball, having a glorious time. When you are happy, what do you want to do? Share it, of course and that’s why God made us. To share his joy.  Is there anybody who doesn’t want to be happy? No. This is what we are made for. But what is happiness?

Most people aren’t really happy because they don’t know what they really want. Happiness consists in knowing what you want and in knowing you have it or are on the way to getting it. There are things we want by our very nature. I always say, happiness begins by going to bed. If you don’t get enough sleep, you are never going to be happy. Or, if you don’t get enough food, or physical exercise, or friendship, or study and so on.

But we are not just humans, we are “Christed’ persons; therefore, we want Scripture, we want the Sacraments. Then there are whole areas where we can choose. It’s knowing what we want and knowing we have it or are on the way to getting it. There is our happiness and that is why Jesus’ first words are: “What do you want?”

If you don’t know what you want, for God’s sake - and I mean that literally - clear that up.

What do you want?  Well, John knew what he wanted. He wanted the whole deal: “Where do you live? I’m moving in.”  I would be willing to bet you pounds for pennies, those boys thought Jesus was going to take them off to some cottage, to some house, some little villa and sit them down and give them the whole story. But the boys soon learned that although foxes have their dens and the birds of the air have their nests, the Son of Man had nowhere to lay his head.  Yet, they still followed him. They followed him day in and day out, week in and week out, year in and year out. Finally, on the night of the Last Supper, Jesus answered John’s question. When John said, “Where do you live?” he used a special Greek word. It fully means, where do you dwell in intimacy with the one you love? Where do you make your home? The next time we find that word in John’s gospel is at the Last Supper when Jesus says, “The Father and I will come and we will make our home in you.”

Where does God live? Where does the Father dwell? Where does he make his home? Where is he waiting in intimate ;love? In you and in me. He is right here, he is intimately present, he is at home in you waiting for you to come home. This is where God lives.

Dom Basil Pennington OCSO
Sunday Examiner, Hong Kong, January 2002