By Faith Addington, Catholic Editor
How valuable is a house without furnishings? Even if it is laid upon a solid foundation, the house is nearly worthless if the inside remains unchanged, for something cannot give that which it is not. Or in this case, a house cannot bear good fruit if there is no home.
To create a home, there first needs to exist a vision and a source of funds. If one were to simply begin designing and decorating a house without an end goal in mind, the home would appear cluttered and disjointed. Instead, homes are decorated thematically as an extension of one’s inclinations and preferences. Some prefer homes with bright colors than those with calming colors, or homes that can host a party of people or ones that are cozy with two or three guests; each home becomes a reflection of one’s being. That said, if one were to hoard every grudge and despondent feeling within themselves, the home would become overrun with negativity. However, regardless of the type of home, there will still need to be a means to design the interior. Similar to the requirements of any responsibility, the creation of a home requires discipline in good habits.
Imagine walking into a pristinely clean bedroom: the bed is made with corners tucked tight, the carpet freshly vacuumed, the windowsills dusted and all the books straightened on the shelves. To maintain the cleanliness of this room, one must make the bed upon waking, vacuum and dust with frequency, and return things to their places after use: this requires discipline of good habits and consistency of behavior. Now, there happens to be a day in which you arrive home from school exhausted. You throw your bag on the floor, allowing the contents to spill out. In the morning you pick up the bag and leave the spilled contents on the floor. Later that night, seeing the mess on the floor, you throw some laundry near it that you know you’ll need to take care of eventually, just not in the moment. Before you know it, the once immaculately clean room has become a junkyard of poor habits requiring a massive time commitment and the rewiring of habits to correct this inclination.
A good home is built from discipline and consistency, providing a sense of security for both the homeowner and those that come into the home. As Christians, we are called to model our behavior after Christ, to show the same joy, peace, patience, kindness and faithfulness that He did. There were many moments in His life when Christ was presented with the opportunity to do what was more humanly instinctive and more rewarding in the moment. Yet instead, Christ bore His own metaphorical cross throughout the entirety of His ministry to model for His disciples the discipline needed to live a Christian life before taking up the final cross and bearing the weight of our sins. Christ built the most beautiful of homes on earth, a place that – should you seek it from Him – bears good fruit.
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The Saint 