Receiving God in Our Hearts and Homes

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One of the advantages of being a pastor of a small parish is the ability to visit most families in their homes throughout the year. While not all parishioners welcome such a visit, a good number do. Many requests that the pastor not only visit them but also break bread with them in their home. If the pastor accepts the invitation, it would be reasonable to assume that a degree of preparation would ensue. In addition to tidying up, an extra religious object or two might be strategically placed in the living room for good measure. At the appointed time, the household would be ready to open the door to their honored guest.

Dining With Outcasts

We know from scripture that Jesus would often dine with the equivalent of today’s average parishioner, even the outcasts and marginalized, during his public ministry. On one occasion, Jesus indicated His availability and a sense of purpose to dine at a particular house. Upon meeting a tax collector perched in a tree to see who he was, Jesus elicited an invitation to dinner from him:

[Jesus] came to Jericho and intended to pass through the town. Now a man there named Zacchaeus, who was a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man, was seeking to see who Jesus was; but he could not see him because of the crowd, for he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus, who was about to pass that way. When he reached the place, Jesus looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.” And he came down quickly and received him with joy. When they all saw this, they began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.” (Luke 19:1-10)

Someone’s Knocking at the Door

In the Revelation, Jesus uses the image of standing at a door and knocking to illustrate His readiness to be received into our hearts and homes. Even though doors and walls are no barriers to God, our receptivity determines whether intimate fellowship and dinner will ensue. In the case of Zacchaeus, Jesus “knocked” and was invited inside. The “call and response” of dialogue with God that is the essence of prayer is illustrated in the following passage:

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, [then] I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me. I will give the victor the right to sit with me on my throne, as I myself first won the victory and sit with my Father on his throne. (Revelation 3:20-21)

Dressing for Dinner

Being in a state of grace and readiness to receive God into the home of our hearts is the preferred posture in Christian life. We should also be ready to accept God’s invitation to gather in His house, which for Catholics is the parish church. The Lord’s Supper celebrated at every Mass is a standing invitation to all, “good and bad alike,” with the proviso of being clothed in a state of grace. The reception of Communion, the crescendo of the Eucharistic gathering, is open to all wearing a garment free of the stain of mortal sin. The following passage underscores the importance of being clothed properly in the Lord’s presence and the willingness to enter the dialogue that is prayer:

Then [the king] said to his servants, “The feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy to come. Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find.” The servants went out into the streets and gathered all they found, bad and good alike, and the hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to meet the guests he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment. He said to him, “My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?” But he was reduced to silence. Then the king said to his attendants, “Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.” (Matthew 22:8-13)

Let us pray for the grace to stay in a posture of readiness to receive Christ in our parish church and the domestic church of our hearts and homes.

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3 thoughts on “Receiving God in Our Hearts and Homes”

  1. Pingback: MONDAY EDITION – Big Pulpit

  2. I never noticed the “not worthy” in the first verse, so thank you for including that. It’s really important because it’s the nature of our relationship with Jesus that makes us worthy to enter the marriage banquet of the Lamb or not. Does our love for the Lord allow us to clothe ourselves with His righteousness and live in the character of His Spirit and Truth?

    In Christ,
    Andrew

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