Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Easter
Where are you from? When people ask you that question, what does your answer say about you? Do the favorite foods of your hometown apply? Do cultural stereotypes and weather preferences apply to you? Beyond the surface, what does claiming your hometown say about you? How do you feel when you recall your beginnings there? What elements of that life have most strongly shaped you?
Our Psalmist today writes about these kinds of connections. With the divine author we praise our foundations and the boundaries of the places where we began. We who have been born in the Spirit might consider the place of our second birth, and what it means for us today. What type of Catholic were you? What sort of Catholics formed you? Who shaped your beliefs about God and your daily living of the gospel? For the psalmist, it all comes back to the ultimate homeland for the people of God: Jerusalem. The religious and cultural center of ancient Israel is proclaimed also as a place of second, truer birth. “One and all were born in her.”
No matter the proclivities of your particular sort of Catholicity, we have through the Church a unity in Jesus that beautifully connects us to all people. But the blessing is not merely for we who believe and practice today. “…of Zion they will say, ‘one and all were born in her.’” Love and righteousness in our world, all that is good, began in God. Grace is not a distant memory, no matter how far away it may seem in these days of distancing. Instead, the Spirit is very close to us. We are surrounded with the loving, transformative energy of Jesus Christ. This ongoing presence is worth celebrating, even if in our private little spaces. And indeed we will celebrate! “And all shall sing, in their festive dance, ‘My home is within you.’” We live inside of God. While we are all spiritually handicapped by our current lack of the Eucharist and, more deeply, from our sin, God is not far away. When we learn to see this truth that has always been there, we will sing and dance with the Joy of the Lord! May that day come quickly. Amen.
-Chris Nieport