Who Saves Desire?
Simone Riva - Who Saves Desire? The Lesson of the Magi.
At first glance, those men arriving last to the celebration with their gifts almost seem endearing. What was meant to happen has already happened; they have missed the heart of the event. They are the final arrivals. The Evangelist Matthew recounts the scene this way:
“Some Magi came from the east to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the King of the Jews who has been born? We saw his star as it rose and have come to worship him.’ On hearing these words, King Herod was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. Gathering all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They answered, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written through the prophet:
And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
from you shall come a leader
who will shepherd my people Israel’” (Mt 2:1–6).
In one of his Discourses, St. Augustine comments: “And who would not be intrigued to learn why it was that, although the Jews answered the Magi’s question by citing Scripture, they did not go with them to worship Christ?” Faced with the same fact, some people moved, others did not. Those who were closest did not move. Those who should have moved—who knew everything, who had studied the Scriptures, who always spoke God’s words—remained still. Meanwhile, those who might have been expected to stay put set out instead. From far away, they embarked on a journey. Without diminishing their desire, without joining the great army of the “contented,” without letting fear or laziness triumph, they departed.
It is striking that Herod gathered the very people who should have set out—because they knew the prophecy—and yet they did not take a single step. The question did not burn within them; their hearts did not ache; their desire did not cry out. Christ was only a short distance away, and soon they would see Him with their own eyes, but that was not enough to recognize Him. Immediately we realize that this question concerns us, too. As Fr. Julián Carrón asked in an interview with L’Osservatore Romano in 2019, “Who saves desire? What kind of gaze is necessary so that our desire is not diminished?” He went on:
“In the classical world, the excess of desire was perceived with alarm, as a dangerous hubris. Consequently, it was necessary to impose boundaries, to contain that disproportion, to keep it within the limits of measure. Then came Christianity. The Gospel documents the presence of One who stands before all human desire. Jesus addresses that very desire, looks it in the face, and reveals its full magnitude.”
If we are honest, we must admit that the temptation to shrink our desire has never disappeared. It frightens us to face what within us demands an answer, so we often bury it under the ashes of a life like any other. Yet not everyone consents to remain in a cage. Some do indeed move. The very ones who might have been expected to stay put suddenly decide to venture forth. After all, it is what we need: for someone, at some point, to take himself or herself seriously and say, “I.” We, too, long to be among those “last arrivals” who have encountered a gaze capable of beholding desire in its full breadth, and who thus dare to risk the journey.
