Several years ago, when I bought a car, I did everything carefully. I researched the options, compared features, went on test drives, talked to other owners, and slowly narrowed it down until I found exactly what I wanted. Then I bought it, drove it home, and before long I had the same thought everyone eventually has: it was good, but something was missing. There was some feature I wished it had, some improvement I could already imagine.
That little moment says a lot about the human heart. The same thing happens not only with possessions but experiences, success, and even relationships. We receive something good, we are grateful for it, and still the heart keeps reaching. The ancients called that eros: desire. It is the deep hunger that drives a human life. It gets us out of bed, sends us to work, draws us into friendship and family, and, at its deepest level, turns us toward God.
The two disciples on the road to Emmaus are living the ups and downs of eros. They are walking away from Jerusalem with broken hopes. Everything they expected from Jesus seems to have collapsed. They have heard the reports from the women, but they cannot yet believe them. Then the risen Lord comes near, disguised. He walks beside them. He opens the Scriptures. He shows them that God’s plan was larger, stranger, and more beautiful than they had understood. And as he speaks, desire awakens again. Hope begins to stir. Eros returns. They say, “Were not our hearts burning within us…?”
That burning matters. Before faith is made real in the breaking of the bread, there is already desire. Their hearts are leaning toward and aching for the truth before their minds can grasp it. Many of us assume faith begins mainly with the intellect, with arguments and explanations. Those things matter. But the deeper, truer ground is desire. We long for a love without limits, for mercy greater than sin, for life stronger than death. God’s revelation answers that longing.
Much of modern life trains us to distract ourselves from that desire. We live surrounded by comforts, entertainment, and endless chances to consume one more thing. Even where poverty remains real and painful, the surrounding culture still teaches us to manage desire by feeding it small satisfactions. Yet the heart does not settle. It grows dull for a while, then reaches again. Finite things can delight us, and we should thank God for them, but they cannot carry the weight of an infinite longing.
So the spiritual life cannot be reduced to restraint. It requires desire. It requires purified desire. When the world disappoints us, when some new purchase or pleasure fades faster than promised, that moment can become grace. Instead of rushing immediately to the next distraction, we can let the emptiness teach us. We can admit that this hunger is larger than anything on a shelf, larger than the world itself. This desire is for God.
The saints became holy because they refused to betray that eros. They kept it burning and turned it toward the Lord until he filled it. He will do the same for us. The same risen Jesus still walks with his people, still opens the Scriptures, still makes himself known in the breaking of the bread. Every mass places us on that road to Emmaus. We arrive carrying disappointments, questions, and restless hearts. Then Christ meets us in word and sacrament and draws our desire toward its true resting place.
Do not let the world dull your desire. Guard that holy restlessness. Bring it to prayer. Bring it to Scripture. Bring it to the altar. A heart that truly desires God will not be left empty. It will find the one who is infinite, and it will possess him forever.