THROUGH UNTRUE Fr. Rolando V. dela Rosa, O.P. Many of us are allergic to the word “emptiness” because it seems like a gaping hole in our being. We equate it with loneliness, darkness, and depression. So, when we feel empty, we frantically grasp at anything — food, drink, drugs, entertainment, people, work — to fill the void. Or, we hurl ourselves into a whirlwind of activities to numb the pain inside. Being empty is not something to be feared. We become like an open hand, ready to receive whatever life offers. Emptiness helps us put our lives in perspective, allowing us to see that the things we thought necessary were actually trivial and unimportant. How can good things enter our lives when we are too full of everything we refuse to give up? I remember officiating in a wedding several years ago.  A few weeks before the wedding, the couturier, who designed the bride's fabulous gown, advised her to go on a crash diet because she was overweight. She achieved her goal, looking almost anorexic when the wedding day came. But during the ceremony, she repeatedly fainted, probably because of hunger. Her wedding was a God-given blessing, but she was not there, body and soul, to experience it. Isn’t it tragic? Because our attention is focused on what we want to achieve, our life becomes a continual series of blessings that we fail to claim as our own. Good things happen to us, but they never become part of our experience. A sense of emptiness brings us to a moment of truth when we realize how superficial our concerns are. We realize that we have become experts at counting, accumulating, and cramming mass-produced objects. These have become permanent fixtures of our dreary lives. Emptying is to create space.  An empty space appears to be "full of nothing," but as the Japanese Zen masters teach us, it is actually pregnant with possibilities, just waiting for the right time to become realities. Every time we empty our lives, we experience a kind of death because we feel we are giving away something that has become an essential part of our life. But it is a dying that makes space for new life to arise. It makes room for new ways of being and living. This is the message of our Gospel reading today: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). Jesus did not allow His life to remain a single grain. By dying on the cross, it became the Living Bread that gives life to all. Of course, emptying our lives to experience the fullness of nothing does not immediately result in a sense of triumph, joy, and well-being. Often it comes with excruciating pain that we have to endure. Joyce Rupp's beautiful prayer captures the pain and the hope involved in being full of nothing: Compassionate One, I sit with empty hands pondering the pain of many goodbyes. I sit with empty hands feeling the ache and sorrow of all my losses. I sit with empty hands yearning for the unfolding of my true identity, trusting that your presence embraces my pain, shelters my vulnerability, and gives meaning to my countless dyings.