2nd Sunday Lent - Year C

A Place to Call Home
 It is part of human being’s dream to have “a place to call home”.  This Sunday’s readings illumine and illustrate this aspect.  In Genesis (15:5-12, 17-18) we see how the promise of homeland changed Abraham’s future and outlook on life.  In the transfiguration scene (Lk. 9:28b-36), we see Peter offering to pitch 3 tents to remain in that blessedness for ever.  This natural instinct of having a home and homeland should guide us to the fact that we are “citizens of heaven”.  (2nd reading Phil. 3:17-4:1)

This inborn tendency of having the blessedness of that place we call home should help us today to focus a caring eye and offer a helping hand to those who do not enjoy the security either of a home or a homeland.  The recent natural calamities in Haiti and the man-made calamities in Sri Lanka and other countries are to rouse our feelings in this respect. In its most recent survey, World Refugee Survey 2021, the U.S. Committee for Refugees in Washington D.C. certified that in the year 2020, more than 26.4 million people were forced to flee their native lands due to war and persecution. This number has doubled since 2010 and is higher now than it has ever been.  More than 48 million  others have been internally displaced i.e., they have been forced from their homes and made to walk their countries’ roads in search of a secure resting place.  In addition to these refugees and otherwise displaced persons millions of others throughout the world are homeless.  Of these millions, at least 15% are children and 19% of the urban homeless population are veterans.

Homelessness is, in effect, equivalent to having no identity.  Without an address, the homeless person usually cannot get a job, receive social security or financial aid.  HomeAid, an organization begun to assist the homeless, cites a variety of causes of homelessness, e.g. sudden job loss, catastrophic illness, spousal desertion, domestic violence, crisis pregnancies or a combination of these.

In light of these statistics, let us be attentive to Jesus who speaks to us through the needs of others.  During these weeks of Lent, let our thoughts and actions be centered on the homeless, the displaced, refugees and all other companions on life’s journey who are seeking a place to call home.