Wherever you walk with the Blessed Virgin Mary; that is, when you are in a state of sanctifying grace in communion with the Roman Catholic Church (Baptism starts a person on this journey), and, as such, you are living in the Immaculate Heart of Mary, you are at home. This is an often overlooked perk of being a Roman Catholic: your heart will find a home when you place it, via the above ways (Baptism, etc.), in the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
The Catholic English writer G.K. Chesterton (b. 1874- d. 1936) spoke of this mysterious notion of finding a home with Our Lady in a poem which he titled The House at Christmas. Christmas is the subject of the third joyful mystery of the Holy Rosary: the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Nativity. It is a moment in time that Catholics remember with every recitation of the Holy Rosary, but it is a moment that is ever present, as the Incarnate Word is living. Jesus Christ is actively Our Lord and Savior at this moment. St. Francis built the first Nativity scene, and I think he did so to keep the visual of the Nativity before our eyes, as the Rosary does, to remind us of our true home. The home where Our Lady is, where Christ has come to save. Here is Chesterton’s The House at Christmas:
The House of Christmas
There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay on their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost – how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky’s dome.This world is wild as an old wives’ tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.
It is good to remember that the home of our hearts is in the Immaculate Heart of Mary where her Divine Son, Jesus Christ, is contemplated and adored.
Home is where she is.
May you have a good day.
~SCF
