“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 once 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 muffin and some juice and
coffee. 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.
So often over the years, I have presided at the funerals of people I
came to know and love. It’s always painful, at the end of the funeral,
to lead the coffin out through the portico over there, knowing that this
place that had been their home for so long would be home no longer.
Home.
St. James Cathedral has been home to me for the 37 years I’ve been
privileged to serve as pastor. And now I’m preparing to step aside so
that someone else can serve in that role. It’s going to take some
getting used to – for me, for you – but I take comfort in knowing that
you will see to it that your new pastor finds a home here and that even
though I won’t be the pastor, the Cathedral will still be my home.
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 recognition 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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