“Here he lies where he longed to be; Home is the sailor, home from the sea, And the hunter home from the hill.†These verse was written by Robert Louis Stevenson, the man who wrote Treasure Island. It was intended by the author that it should be inscribed on his own tomb. It brings to mind the theme of many a human story: the master of the house who goes away to war, or to make a living, or to seek a fortune. But one day he comes home again, unexpectedly. And what does he find? The Oddyssey, attributed to the Greek poet Homer, is among the most ancient pieces of European literature. King Odysseus goes to fight the Trojan Wars and is absent for 19 years. In the meantime his baby son grows up, and his faithful wife is bullied by noblemen who want to marry her and inherit the kingdom. Homer writes beautifully. He describes how, one rosy-fingered dawn Odysseus comes sailing home over the wine-dark sea, and rescues his wife, slaughters her persecutors and reclaims his kingdom. A man from the Baltic States was living in an English parish in 1956. He had been separated from his young wife when war broke out. The end of the war found him in the UK, and his wife behind the Iron Courtain. One day, Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin’s successor as leader of Russia, was visiting Britain. The lonely man wrote to him at the Russian Embassy: “Please, a favor, release my wife – I miss her so much.†Khrushchev ordered the police to find the woman in her remote village, and have her on the morning flight. The man was told to be at London Airport by midday, and there, coming down the gangway, bewildered out of her mind, was his darling wife. Each had remained faithful to the other.
Jesus tells us His tale of the householder who went off to the wedding feast, and His message is the same: faithfulness. When He was on earth He promised that He would come again. The early Christians thought it would be a matter of months, or at most a year or two. We have to say, it’s been 21 centuries, and it has by now rather faded from our horizon. Yet it is still a reality. If it happens in my lifetime, shall I be ready? Or if I die before the second coming, and face my personal judgement, shall I be ready? Jesus expects me to be faithful , lamps lit. Most of us have duties to others, simply by reason of age, ordination, promotion, influence, or particular talent. How have I discharged these duties? How am I discharging them now?
Let’s stay with that theme of responsibility. We all have a responsibility for transmitting the faith to future generations. Some of us are committed to this profesionally. A bishop is the chief catechist of his diocese. A pastor needs to make sure that the Catholic faith is properly taught by properly trained people, both to children and to adults. All these positions – bishop, priest, teacher – are vocations. We are called by God to share our faith. But the greatest of all vocations is that of father or mother. It is not enough to say, “I will ignore it and let my sons and daughters choose for themselves when they grow up.†We owe it to them to baptise them, to practice the faith with them, to see that they are well instructed: this is how we keep our lamps lit. So, dear God, help us to be faithful, for deep down we know what our master wants.