What is your favorite room in your house?

I grew up in a big family.  The five boys were born first.  We managed between two rooms, until my sister was born and grew old enough to need her own room.  So, mom and dad built a room in the basement for the oldest kids.  It was a great day when it was my turn and I got to move to the basement room.  I could stay up as late as I want, talking on the phone or studying or dreaming about my future.  I remember the conversations with my brothers (and fights), the wrestling matches, the quasi football games we’d have down there.  In that room, my world was safe, ordered and predictable.  With a small light to study by, two makeshift car speakers on either side of the homemade desk, and an extension phone within reach, I could share my homework with classmates, write my letters to my friends, and have conversations uninterrupted by the rest of the family.  It was my favorite room in my house, my refuge, and the place where I would retreat to, and emerge from refreshed and ready to take on the world. 

I suspect I am not alone in my experience of having a favorite room, a refuge in the place where one lives.  There is something about having a space, a room which is a refuge that is a great comfort, a great grace in our lives.  Even now, whenever I fly on a plane, I pray for an empty seat next to mine – just to have that little space, that little room to retreat into.

So, when Jesus gathered with his disciples on the final night of his life, in that upper room, and began to talk about his departure from them, you can imagine the conflicting emotions.  “Where are you going?”  “We don’t know the way!”  “Show us the Father, and it will be enough!”  It was unsettling, this “leave taking’ that Jesus spoke of.  So what is the image that Jesus uses to capture his care and his promise/hope for his disciples? – A ROOM.  “In my Father’s house, there are many rooms.  I am going there to prepare a place for you.”  That is what Jesus promises them.  A house with lots of rooms – lots of places that are refuges and warm and inviting and suitable for conversations – places where the trials of the world disappear and you are at home and at peace.  That is the good news that Jesus tells his disciples – in heaven there is ROOM for all of us – a room that God has prepared for us. 

However, it doesn’t stop there.  This word ROOM, is a rare word that Jesus used – it only occurs twice, both times in John’s gospel, and both times within this same conversation that Jesus is having.  In the 23rd verse of this same chapter, Jesus says: “Those who love me will keep my word and my Father will love them and we will come to them and make our ROOM with them.”  Not only is Jesus preparing a room for us in heaven, but he also tells us that God dwells within us in a ‘room’ we prepare for him!  The keeping of his word, the openness to having God come to us in Jesus – creates a space, a room for God’s presence in us.  Not a bad deal.  A room in heaven and a room on earth – and God dwells within them both.

And creating that ‘room’ has a practical consequence for us.  We would not be here this Sunday night if some people in the Archdiocese did not create room for you in their giving.  The Newman Center just down the road exists because people have created a space for your questions and desires and hopes and dreams during college.  They wanted to create a space where students could gather and pray and become the people God wanted them to become.  So they donated to the Annual Catholic Appeal – which in turn has created this ministry, this space for you.  And now, it is your turn to create a space, a room for others to dwell in.  In this leaflet, you can see all the various “rooms” the Appeal funds, all the ways that people in their goodness try to keep the message of God dwelling with us alive.  So I invite you to pray about how you might pay it forward, and continue the process.  It doesn’t have to be much – I remember what it was to be a college student – nearly broke.  But make one sacrifice – one movie, one dinner you didn’t go to, and don’t send the money you’d spend on that – but rather the money you’d pay in GAS to get there…

I used to think that my favorite room of any place where I have lived was that basement room in the Kempf house on 7433 Brightwood Drive.  Now I know that is not true.  Rather, it is the room in my heart left for God –wherein I hear his love for me.  And where that love in me keeps growing and allowing me to embrace all you in my heart.  God has indeed prepared a place for you.  Will you return the favor?