Fifth Sunday of Easter
Acts 6:1-7; 1Pt 2:4-9; Jn 14:1-12
May 10, 2020

 It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of home. A prison warden once said, “If you were to give the prisoners a choice between going home or staying here in a luxury suite, complete with color TV, sauna, and a cocktail lounge, there isn’t a single prisoner who wouldn’t choose to go home.” 

When things fail, when we feel tired and lonely, there is always home to go to. “Let’s go home.” “I want to go home.” How many times and in how many different circumstances have we heard people say those words, or how often have we said them ourselves. Home is where we are safe. Home is a place of communion and if you know you’re going home, the trip is never too long or too difficult. We must go out into the world to know how welcoming and safe our own home is. 

Imagine if you had no home to go to. 

Nelson Mandela, the South African bishop, tells how during the long years of imprisonment on Robben Island he had a recurring nightmare. He relates: 

In the dream, I had just been released from prison – only it was not Robben Island but a jail in Johannesburg. I walked outside the gates into the city and found no one to meet me. In fact, there was no one there at all, no people, no cars, no taxis. I then set out on foot towards Soweto. I walked for many hours before arriving in Orlando West, and then turned the corner towards No. 8115. Finally, I would see my home, but it turned out to be empty, a ghost house, with all the doors and windows open, but no one there at all. ( Long Road to Freedom, 1994, Little, Brown, and Company.)  

To have a home is not just to have a house. To have a home is to have a set of close ties with people who accept us for who we are, and who give us a feeling of belonging. 

Despite all the buildings we put up and the roots we put down, here on earth we do not have a lasting home. All we have, as St. Paul says, is a tent. At death, the tent is folded up. 

That is why it is not only on earth that we need a home. We also need a home to go to when death brings down the curtain on the day of our life. Without such a home, life would be a journey to nowhere. 

During the Last Supper, Jesus began to talk to the apostles about the fact that he was leaving them. On hearing this, they were plunged into sadness. But he consoled them with these words we heard in today’s Gospel: 

“In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.  I am going to prepare a place for you. I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am, you also may be.” 

These words tell us that we have an eternal home to go to, namely, God the Father’s house. 

For a child, home is not so much a place, as a relationship of love and trust. A child can move around a lot and not feel homeless, as long as his or her parents are there. It is the same for each of us and for all those who have a close relationship with God. 

We spend our lives searching for God and groping our way towards him. To die is to find him, to meet him, and to see him.

To die is to go to God, and to go to God, is to go home.   

- Fr. Stephen Lattner, O.S.B.