“Whoever loves me will keep my word and my Father will love them
and we will come to them and make our dwelling place - our home -
with them….”
Home. Who of
us doesn’t need – or long for - a home?
Years ago, I
ministered to a woman - a world-renowned opera singer - who came
here all the way from Italy for a bone marrow transplant. My heart
went out to her: it was clear what a difficult time she was having,
not just with the toxic treatments she was getting, but with being
alone in a strange land, far from home. And yet, each time I brought
her the Eucharist, I could see in her face that, for those few
quiet, prayerful moments at least, she was home.
Home. I remember
receiving a letter from a woman who told me how touched she was by
Pope Francis - his kindness, his openness, his humility - and even
though she identified herself as a former Catholic, she sent a
donation and expressed the hope that maybe there was a home for her
in the Church after all.
Home. A couple of
Sundays ago, I was visiting with one of our guests at our Sunday
morning breakfast. He was enjoying a burrito and some bread pudding
– both very popular dishes over there. At one point, he said to me,
“I don’t have a home right now and haven’t for some time but, you
know, because of the way people treat me, this place feels like
home.”
Home. A couple of
weeks ago I presided at the funeral of a man who was a parishioner
here for many decades. He loved this place and served it faithfully.
It was painful, at the end of the funeral, to lead his casket out
through those doors over there, knowing that this place that had
been his home for so long would be home no longer.
Home. We do need a
home. 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 really the place
where God finds us: “We will come to them and make our home with
them.”
Home. Have you ever
noticed how frequently the scriptures tell stories of people leaving
home? Adam and Eve had to leave their home, their garden paradise;
Abraham left his home, his lands, his herds, all that he knew;
Moses, Isaiah and Jeremiah, left the security of anonymous, private,
undisturbed lives; Mary and Joseph left home to journey to Bethlehem
and later to Egypt; Peter, James and John, left the security of
their nets, their boats, their families, their way of life. “Leave
your home,” was the divine summons to each of them. “Leave all
behind.” But there was more: there was also the divine assurance: ‘I
will be with you.’ Home, it seems, is not a fixed place. Home is
where we are and where God is with us.
Home. I remember
visiting with the grandmother of a baby I had just baptized. “Do you
know what baptism means to me?” she asked me. “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….” If we ever fully grasped the meaning of those words of
Jesus, I think we would be completely overcome. Lost in
wonder!
In many monastic
communities, it is customary, whenever the monks process to the
altar, that they bow two-by-two to the altar and then turn and bow
to each other in silent acknowledgment of the God who dwells within.
Altars and tabernacles, it seems, are made not only of precious
stone or wood, silver, gold or bronze….
Home. “We will
come to them and make our home with them.” Home is where we
are and where God is with us. The reading from the Book of
Revelation said all of this in the wonderfully poetic imagery of
John’s great apocalyptic vision that is beautifully represented in
the tympanum above the great ceremonial bronze doors of this
Cathedral. 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.”
There it is
again, my friends – for home is not so much a place, nor is it a
building, or even a great temple. Home is where God is. Home is
where we are with God. Home is here. Home is now. Home is
every time we gather to celebrate the Eucharist. And home will
be all eternity with God and God with us!
Father Michael G. Ryan
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