The Fatherland: A Longing for Home & Heaven
There is something special about returning to your home after a long vacation. I'm sure anyone can call to mind that specific turn in the road that once you round the corner, your hometown is revealed to you in all its familiar splendor. This love of home is only natural, given that it is/was the backdrop for much of your life. Everyone has their own notion of "hometown pride." Even when I find myself complaining about my hometown, if someone else were to levy those remarks, I would be quick to start defending the town I was just critiquing. That kind of love, where you can recognize fault but still adore, is a type of affection held deep in the core of the human heart.
It is a natural human inclination to have a love of the fatherland/motherland. This can be exemplified through the course of human history. Little more than a hundred years ago did soldiers run out of trenches yelling "For God and Country!" From the birth of tribe/city/duchy/kingdom/nation-state, we have seen people foster a love for where they and their ancestors have come from.
There is something special in saying this place is mine. Yet, it is more than just saying it's mine because wrapped up in that statement you are also saying it is ours. Yes, your hometown is yours, but it is also the possession of everyone else that lived there or has lived there. It's a mutual object that everyone owns completely but also shares entirely. It connects you in a very specific way to those around you, and those who have come before you. Death does not remove the deceased of their investment in their homeland.
There is something special in saying this place is mine. Yet, it is more than just saying it's mine because wrapped up in that statement you are also saying it is ours. Yes, your hometown is yours, but it is also the possession of everyone else that lived there or has lived there. It's a mutual object that everyone owns completely but also shares entirely. It connects you in a very specific way to those around you, and those who have come before you. Death does not remove the deceased of their investment in their homeland.
In fact, in some ways, our connection to homeland reflects our connection to the Church through Baptism. Just as being born in America makes you into an American, being baptized makes you a Christian. It connects you to God's Church, both the Militant on earth and the Triumphant in heaven. The living and the dead. The Church's teaching is reflected in this natural sacrament.
Our homeland provides for us an anchor. It's not hard to imagine a weary soldier or beleaguered traveler longing to return home. Adventure and exploration are lovely and great things. God did not create a beautiful and magnificent creation for us to stare at the same blade of grass all day, but that does not give us credence to abandon our homes for infinite travel. Human beings do not do well with that. We need strong social connections and solid roots. In fact, there are many who think the deterioration of our social fabric is what has caused much of our neuroticism. Alfred Adler, a 20th Century Psychologist, would help clients involve themselves in the local community in order to help cure their mental illness.
Connection with your locale is healing for the human spirit. It pulls us out of our messy selves and connects us with those around us. Our area inhabited by our people.
Connection with your locale is healing for the human spirit. It pulls us out of our messy selves and connects us with those around us. Our area inhabited by our people.
There is a physicality in this kind of love. The love of place. It represents the stability that we all crave. It gives us a comfortable familiarity. A place that we can understand and always return to. I think that this feeling is truly placed in us by God. Think of how often the Scriptures refer to Jerusalem, the Land of Your Fathers, etc. God is a physical God (in the Incarnation) and He made humans physical creatures.
Although, God does not want our love of homeland to stop there. This love of where we're from is meant to push us towards our heavenly home. Just as the love of mother and father (in an ideal world) should reflect the Father's love for us, so our love of home should help us model our love for our heavenly home.
Some might see this as a stretch, but think of how Americans treasure their ethnic backgrounds. Think of how vibrant America is because of Irish American, African American, Slovak American, etc. cultures that are able to exist here. Many Americans who have been here for several generations still have some longing to have a connection with the land their ancestors tread. I have a purely secular friend who cares little for ancient tradition or metaphysics that hangs an Irish flag in their home because they're proud of being Irish. This isn't because they're some ethnocentrist, but because whether humans recognize it or not, we deeply desire to be connected with our past, home country and all. We have this same longing and tie to our heavenly home. Those ties aren't easily seen in the physical world. For those, we must search somewhere else.
The metaphysical world and the physical world are intimately linked. God uses this to usher us towards certain "ends" or purposes. Our chief purpose is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Where are we supposed to do that? Here on Earth of course, but really for eternity in heaven in the New Jerusalem! Which is an interesting concept. The very fact that the earthly city of Jerusalem is used as the centerpiece of God's salvation history further displays God's earthiness. The heavenly city that will establish God's Kingdom on earth is the New Jerusalem. What is Jerusalem? The capital city of the Israelite people, though now it is a city special to all those who call on the name of Christ.
Pride taken in the homeland can be a pride in the land to come if you allow it. If you dedicate that love in gratitude to God for gifting you this place to call your own, you begin to sanctify that love. What makes you "you", ethnicity and all, is a gift from God. Only the Irish may truly boast of their fine whiskey and Guinness, the Russians their vodka and vast forests, the Greeks their islands that dot across the Mediterranean, and all peoples who call this planet their own have something unique from where they have come from. Something that they can call theirs that no one else can.
This is not a call to gate-keeping or exclusivism, this is a call to share those things that make your culture yours. That's the nature of God's grace. He gives it to you so that you may give it to someone else. He has gifted us with our cultures and homeland. Firstly to point us to our true home, since we are a pilgrim Church, but secondly that we may share the richness of our bloodline with others.
So, the next time you find yourself thinking of the Emerald Isle (<insert your preferred country>), thank God for it, pray that he brings you to your Heavenly Home, and find someone to share a Guinness with.
Although, God does not want our love of homeland to stop there. This love of where we're from is meant to push us towards our heavenly home. Just as the love of mother and father (in an ideal world) should reflect the Father's love for us, so our love of home should help us model our love for our heavenly home.
Some might see this as a stretch, but think of how Americans treasure their ethnic backgrounds. Think of how vibrant America is because of Irish American, African American, Slovak American, etc. cultures that are able to exist here. Many Americans who have been here for several generations still have some longing to have a connection with the land their ancestors tread. I have a purely secular friend who cares little for ancient tradition or metaphysics that hangs an Irish flag in their home because they're proud of being Irish. This isn't because they're some ethnocentrist, but because whether humans recognize it or not, we deeply desire to be connected with our past, home country and all. We have this same longing and tie to our heavenly home. Those ties aren't easily seen in the physical world. For those, we must search somewhere else.
The metaphysical world and the physical world are intimately linked. God uses this to usher us towards certain "ends" or purposes. Our chief purpose is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Where are we supposed to do that? Here on Earth of course, but really for eternity in heaven in the New Jerusalem! Which is an interesting concept. The very fact that the earthly city of Jerusalem is used as the centerpiece of God's salvation history further displays God's earthiness. The heavenly city that will establish God's Kingdom on earth is the New Jerusalem. What is Jerusalem? The capital city of the Israelite people, though now it is a city special to all those who call on the name of Christ.
Pride taken in the homeland can be a pride in the land to come if you allow it. If you dedicate that love in gratitude to God for gifting you this place to call your own, you begin to sanctify that love. What makes you "you", ethnicity and all, is a gift from God. Only the Irish may truly boast of their fine whiskey and Guinness, the Russians their vodka and vast forests, the Greeks their islands that dot across the Mediterranean, and all peoples who call this planet their own have something unique from where they have come from. Something that they can call theirs that no one else can.
This is not a call to gate-keeping or exclusivism, this is a call to share those things that make your culture yours. That's the nature of God's grace. He gives it to you so that you may give it to someone else. He has gifted us with our cultures and homeland. Firstly to point us to our true home, since we are a pilgrim Church, but secondly that we may share the richness of our bloodline with others.
So, the next time you find yourself thinking of the Emerald Isle (<insert your preferred country>), thank God for it, pray that he brings you to your Heavenly Home, and find someone to share a Guinness with.
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