Coming Home

Today I am writing to you from Italy, where only a few days ago, I attended the funeral Mass of Pope Francis. I had planned for this trip many months ago to go for the Jubilee Year, and was going to be at the Canonization Mass of (soon to be Saint) Carlo Acutis, but just 3 days before I left, Francis passed, causing the Canonization to be postponed. A trip for jubilation turned to a trip for mourning.

On that day of the Funeral, a quarter of a million people came to attend the funeral Mass of the Holy Father. People from all over the world, most of the Bishops and almost all the Cardinals of the Church, and the Patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic Churches, the family came home to lay our father to rest. Rome, the capital of the worldwide Church, and by the grace and will of God, the spiritual home for all the Church here on Earth, until we can attain our eternal home: Heaven.

Just as with the Holy Father, when members of our own family pass, we hold a funeral Mass for them in their parish church, attended by as many members of the family as possible, especially the most immediate members of the family. A funeral Mass is to pray for the soul of the deceased, not just by those present, but invoking the entire Church, across time, to pray for this person’s soul, petitioning God to grant them entry to our eternal homeland. In essence, we all come home to the church, to pray for our beloved, that they may go home to Heaven.

This home we have is complete union with God, which we can get a temporary foretaste of in Holy Communion at the church, but we can only have it in a permanent fullness in Heaven. We should strive to live a life that prepares our soul to enter that union when we die, through frequent and holy reception of the Sacraments of Penance and Holy Communion, and practicing the Cardinal Virtues. This is the life Pope Francis led even unto death, and we should imitate it so we too can prepare to come home to our Lord.