Conduct yourselves with reverence during the time of your sojourning… This simple admonition found in today’s letter of St. Peter is rich in meaning for us.
            We are sojourners, that is, we are persons on a journey to our permanent home with God. We always have to maintain a careful balance. Right now, this world is our home. It, therefore, requires our care and our attention. We don’t pass through this world indifferent to the conditions in which other persons are living. As we are one family in God, we have to be concerned that all of our brothers and sisters in God have what they need in order to live in the dignity with which God has gifted us all. It is our obligation to respond in charity to the needs of others, doing what we can to address their immediate material needs, but also to advocate for those public policies that will ensure an equitable distribution of God’s gifts so that all persons have the opportunity to obtain employment, adequate housing, sufficient food, access to health care, and time for rest. We strive to make this world reflect what we know God wants this world to be; a place in which we live as one family that cares and provides for the needs of all. At the same time as we are concerned for this world, we do not grow attached to this world. We do not invest so much of ourselves in this world – in our comfort and security – that we forget that we have a permanent home with God. If we invest too much of ourselves in this world, then there is the risk that when our journey ends, it will simply end in death rather than continue on to the glory of God.
            When we maintain this careful balance between an appropriate attention to this world, while avoiding a personal attachment to this world that causes us to focus on our own needs and desires, our own comfort and security, then we are sojourning in this world with reverence. We are honoring our commitment to God and living in a way that will bring us to the fullness of life with God…..
           In this Easter season, may we strive to journey with reverence to our eternal home.
 
 
                            Fr. Mark Hallinan, S.J