4th Sunday of Ordinary Time, A February 1, 2026
Fr. Alexander Albert St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville
Are you unsatisfied? Is something missing, something not quite right? Do you often wake up or fall asleep with the nagging sense that there’s something you want but don’t yet have? Like maybe you’re hungry, but not quite sure if it’s real hunger or just boredom… that you don’t even know what you want to eat? And after the late-night snack or the early morning breakfast, does that vacancy, that subtle emptiness still tug at the edge of your mind?
Good. If any of that describes your common experience, that’s a good thing! Our basic instincts tell us it’s good to be satisfied, to be comfortable and full and at rest, but true wisdom tells us that, actually, to be unsatisfied, to want more, to hunger and thirst… is a blessing. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Many of you are here right now because you hungered for more. The man or woman who is satisfied with life is at rest. The one who hungers, who thirsts, who longs for something… even if they can’t quite define what it is, they go looking. And God? He is found by those who look for him.
That’s what St. Paul is getting at in our second reading when he compares the wisdom of the world to the wisdom of God. The world’s wisdom is not crazy. It says basically that being rich and powerful, fat and happy, comfortable and content are good things that everyone should want. They are good things! They just aren’t the best thing. And the human heart? It isn’t satisfied with good, it wants the best. Imagine a huge mountain. Now imagine an even bigger one. Now an even bigger one. No matter how big you imagine the mountain, you can always imagine a bigger one. Our minds have an infinite horizon. The moment we imagine something, the moment we understand something, our minds and hearts are immediately aware of the fact that there could be more. By definition, the horizon is something we never actually reach.
It is the “foolish” of the world, the lowly, the unsatisfied who learn this first. The wise and powerful and rich think they are satisfied… they think it’s possible to be satisfied in this life. But if you’re hungry… if you’re always hungry? You’re much more likely to realize that hunger is part of this life. Rather than fall for the lie that you can get enough in this world, you learn to never settle for the world, to look beyond it. That is where you find God. That is the promise “for they will be satisfied.”
That hunger, that hard-to-define dissatisfaction I started with? It is righteousness that you want. We learn this in those brief but powerful moments of encounter with the living God. Moments of conversion, moments of awe in the face of his glory, moments of profound and sacrificial love… these briefly sate that hunger and tell us that, yes, there is a way to be satisfied, our hunger is not pointless, and that if we want the hunger to do it’s job, we’ll keep it pointed at God and his kingdom.
This is what it means to be poor in spirit and how, this is how those poor can already “have” the kingdom of heaven. Poverty of spirit, hunger for righteousness, purity of heart, meekness… these qualities do not mean we have heaven perfectly, but they mean we at least know what we want, which puts us miles ahead of those who don’t know, who twist their desires and chase illusions. To hunger for righteousness is to have righteousness at least in the sense of anticipation.
Enlightened by this divine perspective, wise enough to distrust our own wisdom, we are then equipped to stop chasing temporary satisfaction and to dedicate ourselves to remaining on the right path, to becoming part of the “remnant” promised by the prophet Zephaniah. If you are hungry and want real satisfaction, then be “a people humble and lowly!” Be one of those “who shall take refuge in the name of the LORD.” “Do no wrong… speak no lies.” If you are hungry for God – and all of us are, but you at least should know that that’s what you hunger for – if you are hungry for God, then go where he is!
Where is that? Look to our psalm: “the LORD gives sight to the blind, raises up those who were bowed down… The LORD loves the just… [and] protects strangers.” He “secures justice for the oppressed” and “sustains… the fatherless and the widow.” Wherever those things are done, there is God. If those things are not being done, do them! Satisfy your hunger by making God present in this way.
Being hungry is where it starts and blessed are you if you know this. But to truly satisfy that hunger? It will mean hard choices, it will mean changed relationships, dry and difficult moments in prayer, perseverance in commitments to the Church and the Sacraments, following through in the lonely, tired moments on the promises you made in the midst of motivation and community. It will mean prioritizing justice and charity over political loyalties, being misunderstood by those who still think the world is enough. It will mean persecution. But if your hungry enough to do this anyway? Blessed are you for the kingdom of heaven is yours and great is that reward.