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Sunday's Reflection — Fifth Sunday of Easter

Acts 6:1-7; Ps 33; 1 Pet 2:4-9; Jn 14:1-12

Peter writes: come to him, a living stone - rejected by human beings but chosen and precious in the sight of God. And then the sentence that turns the image outward: like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house. Not one stone. Not a collection of individual pebbles each finding their own foundation. Living stones, plural, being built together into something that could not exist if any of them were missing. The spiritual house is not the sum of individual faith lives. It is the structure that only appears when the stones are fitted to each other.

Your family is a spiritual house. Not because you have earned the designation or because your faith is always steady - the cornerstone himself was rejected by human beings, and the stones fitted around him are still being shaped and set. But the house is under construction. Every prayer prayed at your table, every hard conversation had honestly, every child brought to the baptismal font, every Friday sacrifice and Sunday Mass - these are the stones being fitted. The eyes of the Lord are upon those who fear him, the psalm says, to deliver them from death and preserve them in spite of famine. The Lord is looking at your household. The preservation is active, not passive.

Jesus says: do not let your hearts be troubled. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. I am going to prepare a place for you. Thomas says he does not know the way. Philip asks to see the Father. Jesus answers both questions with himself: I am the way. Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. Your children are learning to know Jesus through the domestic church - through the way you speak his name, the way you return to him after failure, the way the house is ordered around his presence. They are being given the answer to Thomas's question and Philip's question before they know they have asked it.

Universal Prayer

• For our family, that we would know ourselves as living stones being fitted together by God into something that glorifies him - a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, a people of his own, we pray to the Lord.
• For children who are asking Thomas's question without knowing it - who do not yet know the way - that the domestic church around them would be the answer given in the language they can receive, we pray to the Lord.
• For families who feel scattered or broken, whose household does not yet look like a spiritual house, that the cornerstone who was himself rejected would be the foundation on which the rebuilding begins, we pray to the Lord.
• For all who have been called out of darkness into wonderful light, especially those baptized at Easter Vigil this year, that the light would keep growing in them as May deepens, we pray to the Lord.

Faith in Action

Look at your family tonight as a spiritual house under construction. Name one stone that is in place - one thing that is working, one practice that is holding, one relationship in the household that is growing stronger. Name it out loud. Then name one stone that still needs to be fitted - one practice you want to build, one conversation still needed, one habit of faith not yet established. The Lord is building the house. Your job is to stay in the construction zone and not walk away from the work.

A Note for Parents

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own - so that you may announce the praises of him who called you out of darkness into wonderful light. That vocation belongs to your household. You were not called out of darkness for your own sake only. You were called so that you could announce the praises - first to the people sitting at your table, then outward. The domestic church is not the destination. It is the place where the announcement is learned before it goes into the world.