What Do You Want? Desire and the Spiritual Life (Notes)

The Bartimaeus Story and the Messianic Secret

The Gospel of Mark tells a deceptively simple story: Jesus meets Bartimaeus, a blind beggar by the road (Bartimaeus = "son of Timaeus" in Hebrew; Mark 10:46-52). A large crowd follows Jesus, creating a disturbance as Bartimaeus calls out for mercy. The crowd tries to hush him, but Bartimaeus persists and is invited over by Jesus.
Bartimaeus is asked, in a pivotal moment of the narrative, to name his desire: "What do you want me to do for you?" (the question is echoed in Luke's account where the healing includes the line, "Receive your sight" and a note that faith has saved him; Luke 18:35-43; Mark 10:46-52). This moment of naming desire is meant to reveal what the person truly wants, not just what one thinks a healer should do.
The crowd’s shift from silence to invitation — "Get up, he is calling you" — underscores the transformation of perception: the once unseen man is now seen, invited, and empowered to approach.
Outcome: Bartimaeus receives sight, Jesus notes the faith involved, and Bartimaeus follows Jesus on the way. This healing is both physical and symbolic: seeing corresponds with recognizing Jesus’ true identity and the possibility of a fuller life following him.
The broader interpretive frame: This story reveals the Ignatian insight that God invites us to name our deepest desires as a path to healing and discernment. The healing is not simply about physical sight but about recognizing one’s vocation and relationship with God.

Desire and the Spiritual Life: Why Ask What We Want?

The author’s personal reflection after hearing the Bartimaeus story: Jesus asks what Bartimaeus desires not to satisfy Jesus, but to aid the blind man in naming his deepest longing and thus to align that longing with God’s will.
The title question introduces a central Ignatian motif: discernment begins with naming desires and recognizing which desires are truly life-giving and God-centered.
Warning about the reputation of desire in religious life: desire is often associated with negative connotations (sex, material greed). The text argues that this is a narrow reading; desire is a primary gift from God when it is "holy desire"—the deepest yearnings that shape who we are and what we are meant to do.
Distinction between surface wants and holy desires: holy desires are not superficial cravings (e.g., a new car) but the life-shaping longings that reveal our identity and God’s call.
The premise that God speaks to us through our desires: desires point toward God’s desires for us, and naming them deepens relationship with God.

The Personal Testimony: Desire During a Medical Crisis

Story of a Jesuit in formation near ordination who experiences a near-crisis medical discovery (a spot on test results suggesting a tumor). His fear and self-pity contrast with the supportive care of a Jesuit friend who offers both practical help and spiritual companionship.
In the operating room, a sudden surge of desire emerges: a jet-like energy that overwhelms fear and clarifies his vocational longing to be a priest. This moment reframes fear as a veil that, when lowered, reveals authentic desire.
Afterward, the author reflects that naming desires helps clarify who you are and who you want to be. It deepens gratitude when fulfilled and strengthens relationship with God when shared in prayer.
Takeaway: Desires reveal God’s invitation; recognizing and naming them can be a grace-filled process of self-discovery and discernment.

The Practice of Naming Desires: Ignatian Practice and Discernment

Ignatius’ frequent invitation to pray for desires: at the start of prayer, ask God for what one wants and desires; this practice helps align prayer with authentic longing and gratitude for God’s gifts.
Two experiential approaches to discovering desires (per Margaret Silf, Inner Compass):
- Outside-In: look at desires that are already present; these may point to deeper, truer aims (e.g., longing for freedom, meaning, or impact).
- Inside-Out: use archetypal stories or beloved narratives (e.g., Moses’ liberation, Jesus’ healing) to uncover underlying holy desires.
The core claim: desire is a primary channel through which God speaks; recognizing our deepest desires helps discern God’s call and the direction of our lives.

Desire, Discernment, and Jesuit Life: How Desires Guide Decisions

In Ignatian discernment, desires inform vocation and assignments: a Jesuit with overseas or scholarly ambitions will be encouraged to name and explore them; superiors take desires into account when deciding assignments.
The tension of lacking desire for a virtuous goal (e.g., living simply or forgiving someone): the question remains, Can you desire to want this desire? Even the longing to long can be a signal of God’s invitation.
The teaching: even when you don’t want a particular virtue, you can pray for the willingness to want it; God can work through that openness.

Desires that Guide: The Broad Range of God-Desires

The Ignatian premise that desire is a key way God speaks in our lives leads to a taxonomy of desires that guide growth: (the following are summarized themes from the chapter)
- Incompletion: restlessness or longing for something more than current circumstances; Augustine’s phrase “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you” is invoked; the God-shaped hole describes the space only God can fill; money, status, and power often fail to satisfy completely. The writer cites Henri Nouwen’s The Selfless Way of Christ to illustrate the restless quest and the pull toward authentic relationship with God; addictions may arise as attempts to fill the hole, but they do not provide lasting fulfillment.
- Common Longings and Connections: ordinary moments that reveal a longing for God, such as being moved by love for a newborn, or feeling a deep sense of peace in church. These moments are often dismissed as mere emotion, yet they can be authentic signs of God’s desires.
- Uncommon Longings: more intense experiences that feel mystical, such as a sudden sense of God’s presence or a strong pull toward holiness. Ruth Burrows describes mysticism as not solely for the saintly; everyday life can include mystical experiences. Heschel’s notion of awe as a way to encounter the divine deepens this idea.
- Exaltation: moments of being lifted up in prayer or worship, where beauty or truth feels overwhelming and heightens the sense of God’s nearness ( Hopkins, Auden, Dinesen examples).
- Clarity: moments of lucidity about one’s path or vocation (often described as consolation without a prior cause in Ignatian terms), such as a clear sense of being in the right place at ordination, or a vivid memory of God’s beauty in a moment of awe.
- Desires to Follow: the move from general longing to a concrete desire to follow Christ; in the First Week of the Spiritual Exercises, contemplation of God’s gifts leads to awareness of sin and gratitude; in the Second Week, the desire becomes more explicit toward a particular way of life—following Christ.
- Desires for Holiness: attraction to models of holiness (saints, or everyday holy people) that draw one toward God; holiness resides in real humanity, not just in perfect saints. Experiencing the sanctity in others calls forth one’s own call to holiness.
- Vulnerability: suffering or hardship can lower defenses and reveal God more clearly; the author shares his father’s last months, in which the spiritual life shifted as illness brought openness to God. Dying can become a path to deeper humanity and love.

Common and Uncommon Longings in Everyday Life

The chapter explores how ordinary events can reveal God: a walk in the woods, tears during a film, a sense of connection during worship.
The text notes that Western culture often discourages spiritual experiences as mere emotion rather than encounters with the divine; the author cautions against dismissing these moments as irrational or purely physiological.
The Naaman story (2 Kings 5:1-19) is offered as a model: Naaman expects a grand healing; his servants remind him that simple obedience can produce the miracle. This parallels a spiritual life that can find God in simple, ordinary acts rather than spectacular signs.

Awe, Mysticism, and the Experience of Exaltation

The book links awe and mystical experience to God’s presence: awe is not just an emotion but a way of understanding meaning greater than oneself (Heschel).
The text cites C. S. Lewis’s Surprised by Joy as a description of a childlike, transformative encounter with God’s beauty and goodness.
The story of Hopkins’s Pied Beauty is used to illustrate a celebration of God’s beauty in creation and to evoke a posture of praise that accompanies exaltation.
Auden’s account of a moment of love for neighbor as a kind of divine presence shows how exaltation can be a bridge to a sustained relationship with God.

Desires to Follow and Desires for Holiness

Desires to Follow: after recognizing blessing and one’s sinfulness in the First Week, many feel gratitude and a desire to respond; the Second Week narrows the focus to a concrete way of life—following Christ.
Desires for Holiness: attraction to holy people—past saints like Ignatius and living models of sanctity in everyday life (parents, caregivers, workers). Holiness is not perfection; it resides in humanity and can be found in ordinary acts of love and fidelity.
The text emphasizes that holiness grows through openness to God’s invitation in one’s current life situation, rather than waiting for a perfect spiritual state.

The Reality of Vulnerability: Suffering as an Avenue to God

The chapter affirms that many people experience a deep longing for God in times of suffering, not because suffering makes God real, but because defenses are lowered and one becomes more receptive.
The author shares his father’s illness and death, noting how his father’s spiritual openness expanded as physical strength declined. A Jesuit sister remarks that dying is about becoming more human, highlighting the connection between vulnerability and openness to God.
This vulnerability is framed as a legitimate path to encounter God and to grow in love and faith.

God Meets You Where You Are: The Seeker Image and Everyday Encounters

A central Ignatian insight: God meets you where you are; you do not need to be perfectly prepared or “worthy” before God loves you. This is echoed by a friend’s reminder: "Nothing, God meets you where you are".
God can meet you through relationships, nature, work, or the arts; the text gives several practical examples of how God reveals God’s presence in daily life.
The story of a prison chaplain who witnesses a breakthrough moment where an inmate is drawn to reconsider violence because of perceived grace shows that God can meet people in the most unlikely places.
The Hadith Qudsi offers a related image: God moves toward us as we move toward God, with proximity multiplying as we seek.

God Speaks Across Language: How God Uses Understandable Means

The author shares a fond example from fiction: Gustave Flaubert’s A Simple Heart, in which the servant Felicite’s parrot Loulou becomes a focal point of memory and devotion; Felicite’s final vision of a gigantic parrot in the heavens signifies how God can reveal the holy through familiar, everyday images.
The Nairobi experience: during a difficult period of loneliness plus illness, the author encounters God through a concrete, tangible scene: a valley view, the rhythm of life around him, and the sense that he is exactly where he needs to be. God meets him in that place, showing that God can speak in very personal, situational terms.
The Gospels illustrate that Jesus repeatedly meets people in the midst of ordinary life (Peter by the sea, Matthew at his tax booth, etc.) and in moments of fear, temptation, or crisis. God’s invitation is often given in the very circumstances of daily living.
The principle: God can meet you in the currently lived life, not only in abstract prayer or planned retreat; you don’t have to wait for life to settle down or for you to be more "religious". God is ready now.

Seeker and God’s Initiative: The Seeker Image and Hadith Qudsi

Luke’s parables of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin illustrate God as the Seeker who relentlessly looks for the one lost item/person, mirroring God’s desire to be in relationship with us.
The Hadith Qudsi phrase emphasizes God’s initiative: as one draws nearer to God by a hand’s breadth, God draws nearer in turn; if one comes by feet, God runs to meet.
The overarching claim: God desires a relationship with us and seeks us as much as we seek God; God’s initiative and our response cooperate in the process of discernment and conversion.

God Meets You: Practical Guidance for Everyday Life

The book emphasizes practical, present-tense guidance for encountering God wherever you are: in friendship, family, nature, work, or the arts.
The core message: Seek grace in the smallest things; such grace expands to enable faith, hope, and love for greater things.
A closing blessing from Blessed Peter Favre, S.J. reinforces the point: the Divine meets you in your ordinary life and invites you toward a life of deeper relationship with God.

God Is Ready Now: Do Not Wait to Start the Journey

A key refrain: God meets you where you are, and God is ready now to meet you again, in any life station, under any circumstance.
The narrative repeatedly dismisses the notion that one must wait until certain life conditions are met before God can act; rather, God’s call is present and persistent in the moment you are in.
The spiritual path—Ignatian discernment, the Exercises, and the practice of recognizing desires—begins in the present and moves toward ever deeper relationship with God.