Home is where the heart is and one of the most grievous parts of my suffering in my life is that I have not been able to provide a home for my son.
When I was younger, I bought a house but could not keep up the payments, working and home schooling. God sold my house in three days after telling me in prayer to sell it. That was a blessing coming out of great hardship.
But, not to have a home for my son is an incredible pain, which most of my readers have not experienced.
Without a place to call home, one must rely totally on God for comfort. And, sometimes, God denies that comfort.
Mary had to live years without Jesus, until He called her to her home on heaven. Of course, she was in union with Him in the unitive state of perfection, as no other saint has been, but she was separated from His entire Being. Only in her death and assumption did she again unite with Christ, the Father and the Spirit totally, experiencing the highest place in heaven given to a human, Imagine, a woman has the highest place after Christ, the God-Man.
Perhaps Mary was the reason for Lucifer's rebellion. Perhaps, this once perfect angel did not want a human woman as the highest of all in the empyrean after the Trinity.
Let us honor today all those good women who made homes for us in our pasts. Some of our mothers are still at home on earth, but some have gone home to heaven. Let us honor the home-makers.
Here is more on the house at Ephesus from the excellent Dayton University site.
http://campus.udayton.edu/mary/questions/yq2/yq381.html
Q: What is the latest news on Mary's house in Ephesus?
A:EPHESUS, Turkey, NOV. 29, 2006 (Zenit.org)
Benedict XVI celebrated Mass, which was attended by part of the small Turkish Catholic community, at the house where, according to tradition, the Blessed Virgin Mary once lived. From the first centuries, numerous Christian authors from the East and West mentioned John's and the Blessed Virgin's stay in this city, in which were located the headquarters of the first of the seven Churches mentioned in the Book of Revelation. But, how was it determined that this was the house of Jesus' Mother? The finding took place at the end of the nineteenth century.
On July 29, 1891, two Vincentian priests, French Fathers Henry Jung and Eugène Poulin, gave in to the insistent requests of Sister Marie de Mandat-Grancey, superior of the Daughters of Charity who worked in the French hospital of Izmir. The priests set out to look for Mary's house, having as their compass the vision of German mystic Blessed Anna Katharina Emmerick (1774-1824). From her bed in a village of Westphalia, where she spent the last twelve years of her life, the mystic received visions of the life of Jesus and Mary. These visions were recorded and published after her death by a German writer, Clemens Brentano. The two priests, former soldiers of the French army, climbed the Bulbul Dag ("nightingale's hill" in Turkish), which rises above the Ephesus plain. After much effort, they found the ruins of a house near a fountain, a few kilometers from Ephesus. The house seemed to have been used as a chapel--which fit perfectly with Emmerick's description.
Pilgrimage site
It was the Panaya uc Kapoulou Monastiri, as the Orthodox Christians of the area called it--the "Monastery of the Three Doors of Panaya, the All Holy," given the three arches of the facade. These Greek Christians used to go to the site on pilgrimage during the octave of the feast of Mary's Dormition, August 15. The Vincentian priests did some research among the residents of the area and confirmed the existence of a centuries-old devotion which recognized in the ruined chapel the place of the last residence of Meryem Anas, Mother Mary.
Archaeological studies carried out in 1898 and 1899 brought to light among the ruins the remains of a first-century house, as well as the ruins of a small village that was established around the house since the seventh century. Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) was positive about these findings and re-established in the Ordo Romanus a note that on the feast of the Assumption mentioned Ephesus as the probable place of the Blessed Virgin's Dormition. The Meryem Ana shrine, in front of which Benedict XVI celebrated Mass today, was restored in the 1950s. Pastoral care of the site has been entrusted to the Capuchin friars.
Mary's House was visited by Pope Paul VI in 1967 and by Pope John Paul II in 1979. It is the object of Muslim pilgrimages too, as Mary is presented in the Koran as "the only woman who has not been touched by the devil."
Here is how Benedict XVI summarized his recent visit to Ephesus and the "House of Mary":
"The second day took me to Ephesus, and I thus found myself rapidly in the innermost 'circle' of the trip, in direct contact with the Catholic community. In Ephesus, in fact, in a pleasant place called 'Nightingale's Hill,' looking over the Aegean Sea, is the Shrine of Mary's House. It is an ancient and small chapel that has arisen around the little house that, according to a very ancient tradition, the Apostle John built for the Virgin Mary, after going with her to Ephesus. Jesus himself had entrusted them to one another when, before dying on the cross, he said to Mary: 'Woman, behold, your son!' and to John: 'Behold, your mother!' (John 19:26-27)
Archaeological investigations have demonstrated that this place has been since time immemorial a place of Marian devotion, loved also by Muslims, who go there regularly to venerate her whom they callMeryem Ana, Mother Mary. In the garden next to the shrine I celebrated holy Mass for a group of faithful who had come from nearby Izmir and other parts of Turkey, as well as from abroad. We felt truly 'at home' in 'Mary's House,' and in that atmosphere of peace we prayed for peace in the Holy Land and throughout the world....
Let us pray, moreover, so that through the intercession of Mary Most Holy, the Holy Spirit will make this apostolic journey fruitful, and encourage throughout the world the mission of the Church, instituted by Christ to proclaim to all peoples the Gospel of truth, peace and love.
... I visited Ephesus and the sanctuary nearby where, according to an ancient tradition, the Apostle John constructed a house for the Virgin Mary."
Posted in Zenit on 12/8/2006 from Vatican City
