Joshua retreated in memory to that late Good Friday afternoon when he stood gazing at a copy church’s curlicued pediment, where a pigeon with plumage in the shades of dusk folded its wings and landed on a stone angel’s right forearm.
The bird stood on its perch as if it could stand there forever, and although it was a rather comic element on the statue, it was certainly home. Joshua noticed movement behind the crest of sacred image, and squinting made out the beak and head of another avian, certainly the pigeon’s wife peeping at the crowd that prayed in the square.
As he let the picture linger in his mind, word from the previous evening’s gospel—one that spoke of the Son’s return to the father—echoed in his heart.
He realized that all the stories told during the Semanta Santa are replete with the theme of coming home. The Exodus is all about the Hebrew people’s flight out of Pharaoh’s Egypt and into a home that flowed with milk and honey. The Passion, Calvary, the empty tomb are all about the Son coming home to the Father’s hands like a dove flying back to its cote.
Then he saw that each man’s longing for home is a reflection of Adam and Eve’s sigh for Eden, rivulets that must flow into the river of the Christ’s own homecoming. Easter is our Lord’s reversal of our spiritual exile, his construction through the Via Crucis of our path back to our true home: communion with one another and with the Blessed Trinity.
Since every act of communion is a preparation for our final home, Joshua felt he must encourage his brother Mark to grow in building relationships, in exercising homecoming especially to his loved ones who are physically distant. In a world that says, “out of sight, out of mind,” Mark must learn how to use his loved ones’ physical absence to grow fonder of them, and that is not by pining away in the melancholy remembering of these precious ones. Technology is on his side.
They can always set aside time to e-mail, chat online or talk with each other over the phone.
When they are not in touch, they can always keep in mind that in walking through separate ways, they are taking part in adventurous stories with which they can regale each other when they will be together again. For the one who has faith and hope, physical distance is no wall, rather it is a cross to bear with love, a bridge that always leads to the one true home—the beloved.
Joshua thought it is also important for Mark to see in the context of his homecoming to his loved ones the importance of the people who are with him in his land of exile. When the Messiah was on earth, He counted the people who gravitated towards him not as distractions in his pilgrimage to the Father but as unique manifestations of his Father’s love.
He slept in their humblest accommodations—a stable. He walked and talked with them in the night. He broke bread and sang songs with them. He wept and prayed with them. He healed them. He received their bread and fish.
He let them wash and perfume his feet. He let them hurt him and lovingly took the marks, the wounds all the way home. In the same way, those who are with us now are meant to help us grow in love so that we can be the best of who we are to the ones with whom we are bound to reunite, both in this world and in the endless Eastertide.
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