A crucial aspect of our growing union with Christ is becoming aware of, and breaking, our unhealthy attachments—usually to the passing things and values of this present world. Perhaps someone may wonder if God can ever become an unhealthy attachment? The crowds, described in today’s gospel, offer a clue: We are told that they sought out Jesus and tried to prevent him from leaving them. God becomes an unhealthy attachment whenever we try to possess and control God in order to secure our self-centered desires and wants. God is likewise an unhealthy attachment whenever our relationship with God is focused on ourselves and not on him and giving ourselves to him in love. It is thus one of the indispensable lessons we all have to learn through the painful and harsh correctives of spiritual aridity, desolation, darkness, and aloneness, by which God frees us from such an unhealthy and immature attachment. Yes, there is a holy attachment to God, but it is marked by eyes fixed on God and the desire to give ourselves completely to him in love. And then, to share the wonder of this liberating experience with others rather than selfishly clutch it to ourselves.