Caryll Houselander, a British spiritual writer, reminds us in her moving work The Reed of God that Christ wants to be found by us in our families. “We know by faith that Christ is in our own family; it is He whom we foster in our children. When you tell your child a story, when you play a game with your little son, you tell a story, you play a game with the Christ Child.” And we know our Lord is hope incarnate. According to [Catholic philosopher Josef] Pieper, “the only answer” for man’s situation is hope. The only answer to our condition is our living hope, Jesus Christ.
The domestic church is an incarnational symbol of hope made flesh, designed to reflect the Holy Family and educate us in sacrificial love. We cultivate it, guard it, and are called to action by it because at the center of it all is the Christ Child. He is the one at home before our hearths as we toil on. He is the one offering us the supernatural grace we need to have the virtue of hope. He is the one who takes us by the hand, leading us on this pilgrim journey and speaking hope to our weary souls, saying, “Take courage; I have conquered the world!” (John 16:33). Any home where the domestic church becomes his throne will call out to a weary Church and the despairing world with the voice of hope and life.
--Haley Stewart
Image source: Sir James Jebusa Shannon, Contes de la jungle (1895), https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/12552
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