Safe Home

 I can still see her, framed in the doorway as we said our goodbyes...our Donegal Granny, hand raised in blessing :“Slán Abhaile”...

Long before I knew what they meant, I just felt blessed by these magic words, spoken in her soft native Gaelic.  Even though we lived only a block away they carried a protection for us every step of the way...”Safe Home”...

Aren’t we always on our way home...the shorter daily mileage only a fraction of the longer life journey we all have to make....because truly we are ‘home birds’ as Sr. Fionnuala wrote in her lovely reflection last week.  Yes, we’re all ‘homing pigeons’, born with a ‘return ticket’.   There is an ache in our hearts, a sense of incompleteness, a knowing that our hearts are created to live forever...This wayward restlessness in all of us will only find peace when we rest in Him.  Our spirits echo the words of Jesus,

‘I have come from the Father... and now I return to the Father’.

He has told us that he has gone before us to prepare a place for us.  This is what the beautiful feast of the Ascension celebrates, and when our place is ready He will come to escort us to our real everlasting Home.

I always love that passage in St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians:

‘We know that when this tent we live in is torn down, God will have a house in heaven for us to live in ...a HOME He himself has made, which will last forever...’

Yes, we are only campers in this life, tent dwellers, b
ut God is preparing for us what no eye has seen and no ear has heard, all that he has prepared for those who love him.  Our Carmelite sister poet, Jessica Powers, has given us a tiny glimpse into the lavish rapturous  welcome that we will all receive when God takes us to himself...                             

Homecoming

The spirit, newly freed from earth

Is all amazed at the surprise

of her belonging; suddenly

as native to eternity

to see herself, to realise

the heritage that lets her be

at home where all this glory lies.

By naught foretold could she have guessed

such welcome home; the robe, the ring,

music and endless banqueting,

 these persons hers, this place of rest

known, as of long remembering,

herself a child of God and pressed

With warm endearments to His heart...

I’ve no doubt my Donegal Granny will be there among the welcoming party of blesseds to embrace me and to whisper...Slán Abhaile, Safe Home! 

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