Fifth Sunday of Easter, May 18, 2014

Written by Fr. Fitz Thursday, 15 May 2014 11:25

Have you ever built a house?

"In my Father's house there are many dwelling places."

There is a story about a new arrival in heaven being shown around the Father's House. As they passed each room the angel would say: The Lutherans are in there. The Methodists are across the hall, and so forth. Finally they came to another room and the angel said in a low voice:

"Shh! Don't make any noise to disturb this Catholic group. We don't want to let them know you are here. Because they think they are the only ones here!"

Well that is the way it used to be prior to Vatican II. Today that story would better refer to the Born Again Evangelicals who seem to think they have a lock on the Fathers's House. Well, maybe over time they will learn. Thank God today Catholcs have a wider vision of the Father's House.

In the Second Readig from St. Peter, he writes:

...let yourself be built into a spiritual house..."

Every morning when I take my walk on 68 Street I have been able to observe a couple building a new house. They must be building it as the money becomes available, for it has sprung up in fits and starts. It is over a year now and the roof is on. The doors are in place. Some shrubs are being planted as I write this. To observe the whole process there is one concusion: it takes patience to build a house.

Farther down on 68 Street a house is being demolished. These owners too must have a cash flow problem, for it seems it is coming down brick by brick and lintel by lintel. The other day the bathroom appeared, the walls surrounding it torn down,  and there stood the  toilet, a lonely figure among the debris.

Saint Peter goes on to describe this symbolic house that is you and me as "...a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own..."

At our Baptism, we began to be built into a house where God might dwell. That was the laying of the foundation.

But like the new house on 68th Street, we must ask God to be patient with us for a house is not built in a day.

And like the house that is coming down farther down 68th Street we too can fall into disrepair and even feel abandoned.

Again our prayer must be: "O God be patient with me, for I too am a work in progress!"

Breakfast Question: Where am I in the building process?

Personal Reflection: Am I patient with myself?