A homily for the Fifth Sunday of Easter
Before I joined the Carmelites, this was quite a few years ago. My parents house needed some work, you know, new windows and maybe repair and some plaster and things like that. So I started to do that. Well, it turned out it’s an old farmhouse. Well, then it was 125 years old, and it really needed a lot of work, all new windows.
And so I’m thinking, well, let’s just repartition the rooms. New electrical, new plumbing. I learned a lot. My my uncle’s an electrician, so he taught me a lot as I just gave this house a complete redo. It was really kind of fun. And I learned a lot. How to bend conduit, how to sweat copper, all these kinds of tasks.
I was really happy when it was all done, but when I was working on it behind the kitchen cabinets, which my grandfather had built 75 years earlier, as I was taking them down. There was an envelope, so I grabbed the envelope and opened it. And it’s a note from my grandmother in Slovak and English, broken English. Talking about how they bought this house is during the depression. They’re worried about their family, but how much she loves the family. Beautiful testimonial. So when it was when I was finishing, I added to that note and put my note also in the envelope. And it’s now behind the cabinets, behind the wall and somebody may run into it 75, 100 years from now. But of everything I did I think that’s the most memorable was finding that note and that great testimonial of love.
It was almost like it was a time capsule of love. In today’s gospel, Jesus says, I go ahead to prepare a place for you. In my father’s house there are many mansions, and I extend that image, that metaphor, a little bit, because, yes, Jesus will build the house for us. Prepare a place for us. But who’s preparing the building supplies?
What supplies does Jesus use? Or where’s the conduit coming from? The copper pipe. The wire, the wood, the wallboard. It comes from us. I think the house is built with love. And the less we have, the more paltry the house, the more we have, the greater the house. Saint Teresa of Avila says, “God does not look on the greatness of our deeds, but only on the love with which they are done.”
I think when I found, that envelope, I said, wow, this is a testimonial of love. This house is built and founded on love. And that’s our goal is to build not a legacy to my greatness or my talent or or, you know, my abilities or my wealth or anything to build a legacy with only love. When Jesus goes ahead to prepare a place, the only building supplies he’s carrying with him is your love.
God does not look on the greatness of our deeds, but only on the love with which they are done.
