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The
Sixth Sunday of Easter
I remember some years ago bringing communion to a woman, a famous opera singer, who came here all the way from Italy to receive a bone marrow transplant. My heart went out to her: it was clear what a difficult time this was for her and how painful it was to be all alone in a strange land, so far from home. And yet, whenever I brought her the Eucharist, I had the feeling that, for a while, at least, she was home…. Home. Not long ago a fellow came up to me after Mass to ask for prayers. He had just been laid off and was desperate to find a job because he had a family to support. Just last Sunday he stopped me after Mass with the good news that he had found a job. But there was bad news, too, he told me: the job was across the country and he and his family would soon be leaving for the East coast. He was thrilled about the job, but sad to be leaving because St. James had become home for him and his young family. Home. Just last Saturday I had the painful privilege of presiding over the funeral of a parishioner and dear friend whom I’ve known since high school. St. James Cathedral had been his home since the mid-1950’s when he served here as Cathedral organist. When I led his casket out those doors last Saturday at the end of his funeral Mass, I was deeply moved at the thought that he was leaving this home for the last time -- on his way to a new and even better home. Home. How deeply we long for a home. And Jesus who became one of us and shared our home so fully, knew well this longing of ours. It was his longing, too: he who had left the glory of his Father’s home to live in this home of ours. The night before he died, as he tried to prepare his friends for what was to come, their fears and anxieties weighed heavily on him. “Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid,” he told them. “I am going away but I will also come back to you. My Father loves you and we will come to you and make our home with you.” Home. We think of home as a place, but in a deeper sense, home is not so much a place where we go or stay or find ourselves. Home is the place where God finds us: “We will come to them and make our home with them.” Home. Did you ever notice how full the scriptures are of stories of home and of people leaving home? Adam and Eve, left their garden paradise; Abraham left his family, his land, his herds; Moses, Isaiah and Jeremiah, left the security of anonymous, private, undisturbed lives; Peter, James and John, left the security of their nets, their boats, their way of life. “Leave your home,” God said to each of them. “Leave all behind.” But God also said, ‘I will be with you.’ Home, it seems, is not a fixed place. Home is where we are and where God is with us. I remember once visiting with the grandmother of a baby I had the joy of baptizing. “You know what baptism means to me?” she asked after the ceremony. “It means my granddaughter will always have a home.” Beautiful, I thought. And true! But she might also have said that baptism also means that God will always have a home. “We will come to them and make our home with them….” I sometimes find myself thinking that if we realized who and what we are – really realized – we would be quite overcome. Lost in wonder! In monasteries there is a very old custom whereby the monks approach the altar in procession two-by-two, bow to the altar in reverence, and then turn and bow to each other in silent acknowledgment of the God who dwells within. Tabernacles, it seems, are not only made of gold, silver, or bronze…. “We will come to them and make our home with them.” Home. Home is where we are and where God is with us. The reading from the Book of Revelation says all of this in the wonderfully poetic imagery of John’s great apocalyptic vision. The vision is of the New Jerusalem, the holy city, God’s home with the human family. It is a rare jewel, this city: like jasper, clear as crystal. It is surrounded by high walls and twelve gates and angels, and flowing through it are rivers of life-giving water. But it lacks one thing, this heavenly city: it lacks a temple. “There is no temple there,” we are told, “for the temple is the Lord God almighty and the Lamb.” For home is not a place, my friends. Home is not a building. Not even a great temple. Home is where God is. Home is where we are with God. Home is here. Home is now. And home is what is yet to be. Forever! Father Michael G. Ryan |
“Those who love me will keep my word and my Father will love them and we will
come to them and make our home with them….” Home. It’s something we quite
naturally think about on Mothers’ Day; it’s something we need every day. Who of
us doesn’t need – or long for -- a home?