I rejoiced at the things that were said to me: we shall go into the house of the Lord   Ps 121:1

 

Many a year the captive Jews had served their cruel taskmasters and day after day had sat by the waters of Babylon and started the echoes with their plaints for the land they loved so far away.  Deep had the lash bitten, low had the labor bent the exiles’ shoulders, and sad ere their hearts in that foreign land.  But at last a day dawned bright for them and the hiss of the scourge was hushed and the burdens were laid aside to be lifted no more.  Exile was over.  They were going back to Sion, Sion that was the one cause of joy.  Not the thought of home, not the thought of the fields and the mountains where their younger steps had strayed; no, but just one word came ever to their lips, “We shall go into the house of the Lord.”  Just one spot in all the Chosen Land from Judea to Galilee came up ever before their famished eyes, and that was Sion, “Great Mountain of His holiness.”  That was home, that alone meant peace and happiness, and once again would their voices tremble with a song that would be sung in a land that was not strange.

Is it so with us?  Is there a thrill in our exile-hearts when we are called to the house of the Lord, not the ruined temple where God had dwelt in sign and symbol only, but the house of the living God, the Home of “the man, Christ Jesus”? 

It may be the call is the voice of His Church beckoning us to her official prayer; it may be the gentle whisper of our Guardian Angels, urging us to visit their God and ours; it may be a thoughtful friend, mindful alike of us he loves and of Him who loves us both.  Come as it may, that call does come, and thanks be to God, for many of us very often.  And are we glad?  Do we feel real pleasure when we hear the news that another visit to our Friend is soon to be our own, another chance to talk with one we love so deeply?

It is always good to talk our soul out to a friend, to lay all our joys and all our sorrows at the door of his own brave heart – and what braver, truer, more loyal heart than that of “the man, Christ Jesus”?  Other visits we may pay to faithful earthly friends, but no visit can compare with the moments spent with Jesus.  That invitation must find us ever ready, and, like the exiles of old, we shall ever draw near to the home of our best of friends with a “song as in the night of the sanctified solemnity, and joy of heart, as when one goeth with a pipe, to come into the mountain of the Lord, to the Mighty One of Israel.”

O Jesus, no sweeter moments have ever been mine than when I knelt and spoke with You, my God!! Exile that I am, my poor heart finds its rest in the silent sanctity of Your earthly home.  There all sorrows are forgotten, there all joys are sanctified, with never the fear of wearying Your Sacred Heart.  Call me often, Jesus to Your sweet company, call me and bid me come to You, because, Lord Jesus, I am happy when I am with You.

“Tis my trysting place with the Divine,

And I fall at the feet of the Holy,

And above me a voice said: “Be mine.”

And there rose from the depth of my spirit

An echo – “My heart shall be thine.”