Homecoming Queen

Looking forward to our heavenly homecoming

11/01/2021

Mt 5:1-12a When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.”

One of the great traditions about fall football is the homecoming game. Have you ever returned to your high school or college for homecoming? Besides the homecoming football game, there is usually a queen or king crowned, along with their “royal court." Did you know my sister, Mary, was the homecoming queen her senior year at Mt. St. Mary Academy? She got the beauty and the brains in our family, and my brother and I were happy to be her pages carrying the tail of her train. Some things never change.

Why do we look forward to homecoming games? Well, it is a chance for the alumni of an academic institution to return and relive a little of the glory days. Who does not look back on their high school and college years with a nudge of nostalgia? We know we cannot really return to our youth, but we can share with others their youth, and thereby rekindle a little of the glow of our own lost glory.

Today on November 1, we celebrate the feast of All Saints. And in a sense it is the ultimate “homecoming celebration.” But there is a decisive difference between the heavenly homecoming of the saints and the earthly one of fall football. With our heavenly homecoming, our glory days lie before us, not behind us. In other words, it is not until we get to heaven that true glory awaits us, where not only my sister will be crowned queen, but maybe even my brother and I will wear crowns. In the gospel Jesus summarizes his Beatitudes with the hope of this future glory, saying: “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.” Our reward will be our glory days that are still ahead of us in that heavenly homecoming.

Today’s Office of Readings from the Liturgy of the Hours featured a reading from St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Listen to how he described heaven as a “homecoming,” almost like returning for a fall football game to your high school or college. He wrote: “Let us long for those who are longing for us, hasten to those who are waiting for us, and ask those who look for our coming to intercede for us.” He continued: “While we desire to be in their company, we must also earnestly seek to share in their glory. Do not imagine that there is anything harmful in such an ambition as this; there is no danger in setting our hearts on such glory.” Put simply, our glory days are ahead of us, not behind us.

My friends, what is one of the greatest challenges we face as we get older? We start to reminisce and relive our glory days of by-gone years. That is why homecoming football is so popular. We want to return to the days when we were young and beautiful and athletic and energetic, like those football jocks and smiling cheerleaders. And a little bit of nostalgia is not a bad thing necessarily.

But today’s feast of All Saints should help with us with a holy reorientation, so that we see our true homecoming awaits us in heaven, not at our old high school or college alma mater. In other words, real glory is not fading farther into the past, but drawing ever closer from the future and will soon touch our present. In the eternal glory days of heaven, it’s not merely one lucky boy or girl who will be crowned as king or queen, but we all will be kings and queens. May every earthly homecoming remind us of that heavenly one.

Praised be Jesus Christ!