Becoming a longing

I finished Christopher West's latest book and it's wonderful, amazing, gorgeous (if a book can be gorgeous). I highly recommend it! It really shed light on a lot of things in my life. Like for example why the coffee and lunch dates with friends (I've been trying to make a more regular part of my routine) make me want more and more coffee and lunch dates. The more friendship and love I get, the more I want. It's been making me aware of my own solitude and emptiness.

"It will enable us to rediscover 'our own finiteness and at the same time our longing for the infinite, that we are not self-sufficient, that we have not the source of joy within ourselves" (p. 214).

"The publicans and harlots enter the Kingdom before the just becasue they are well aware that they cannot save themselves; knowing the wretchedness of their condition, they are open to the Love that has come within their reach. So [their turning to Christ] is not only the result of guilty feelings. It is the consciousness of a desire that cannot be satisfied, the inner emptiness crying out to be filled with it knows not what" (p. 214).

"Prayer, properly understood, is nothing but becoming a longing for God." (Pope Benedict, quoted on p. 207)