Feb. 2020: Week 3: Household Economy

by Soren and Ever Johnson

This past week, our family was undoubtedly not alone in having the flu and even pneumonia travel through our home. We felt the drag of winter as we called the school to report absences, took kids to the doctor, and tended fevers in the middle of the night. Our home was tired, germ-ridden and rough around the edges. And yet, one glimpse out the front window told of something deeply hopeful as well.

At the same time that winter was taking its toll, our Winter Jasmine hedge – a native of China where it’s called “the flower that welcomes spring” – exploded into bright-yellow bloom, and the aconites bloomed too, dotting our flower beds with more brilliant yellow. Her budding green thumb encouraged, our younger daughter ordered packets of seeds that came quickly to our old bare metal mailbox. 

These happenings and context of daily life draw our attention in the third week of each month to Level 3 of our Trinity House: Household Economy. And one stroll past the grocery store magazine racks – with stories on decluttering, spring cleaning, and gardening – shows that the home is indeed a current focus. But why? It’s a great time to ponder the deeper meaning of our homes, the day to day context for our lives.

Let’s start with recalling that we’re made in the image of God, and that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. The context for our daily household economy – the place where these images of God grow, develop and hopefully flourish – is the home. And the dignity of our family, our interpersonal communion, calls for a fitting setting. Far more than just bricks, mortar and four walls, home is a sanctuary, a “domestic church,” a place consecrated or “set apart.” 

The prayer for “Blessing When Moving to a New Home” states this reality beautifully. “The Son of God, Lord of heaven and earth, made his home among us…” the priest begins. “By your life with Mary and Joseph you sanctified the life of the home; dwell with us in our home, so that we may have you as our guest and honor you as our Head.” 

“In you,” the prayer of blessing continues, “every dwelling grows into a holy temple; grant that those who live in this house may be built up together into the dwelling place of God in the Holy Spirit.” (Catholic Household Blessings and Prayers)

Let’s be honest. Our culture doesn’t reinforce this reality. Instead, our homes are thought of at best as work space and places of personal entertainment and comfort or even just as a place to sleep and keep our stuff. “Home entertainment centers” and “home offices” are a big industry, while ideas about the home as a sanctuary, a “dwelling place of God in the Holy Spirit” are few and far between. 

Building your Trinity House – a home in which the Lord dwells, Father, Son and Holy Spirit – requires that you cut against the grain of our culture. Parents set the tone as to how children come to see home: as four walls, a flat-screen, and a place to put our stuff, or as something inexpressibly more profound – a loving context in which they encounter God, a place made holy by the presence of the Lord, who himself lived in an earthly home.  

So, as we look to our spring cleaning and garden planning, let’s be thinking about more than a clean, beautiful, well-ordered, and comfortable home. If we end there, we miss the “why,” and all that beauty will be just a veneer. Instead, the Lord invites us to discover a taste of heaven in our home as we base our Trinity House around his holy presence.

“Within these four walls,” writes Tom Howard in Hallowed Be This House, “under this roof, the lamps are lighted. The offering is here, the vigil is here, the feast is here, the faithful are here. All the eating and drinking, and the working and playing, and the discipline and serving and loving that go on here – they are all holy.” Amen.  

The “flower that welcomes spring” is blooming – and the time to prepare a welcome for the Lord into the holy place of our homes is now. 
 
Heaven In Your Home Toolkit  

Tom Howard’s inspiring Hallowed Be This House: Finding Signs of Heaven in Your Home is available on Amazon here. 

The recently-released Theology of Home: Finding the Eternal in the Everyday by Carrie Gress, Noelle Mering, Megan Schrieber and Kim Baile offers a beautiful collection of photos, essays and reflections on the sacredness of our homes.   

Has your home been blessed? Read more about the rite of the house blessing.  

Don’t Miss… 

Heaven In Your Home Workshops: Our next workshop is this Saturday, Feb. 22nd, at Precious Blood in Culpeper, Va.  There’s still time for you to reserve your space. Can’t make it to Culpeper? Join us on our livestream of that day’s workshop by registering here. If you could benefit from complimentary tickets, just e-mail info@trinityhousecommunity.org.

Upcoming diocesan events and opportunities to go deeper in faith, including the annual diocesan Men’s Conference and annual diocesan Women’s Conference.
 
What Others Are Saying
 
“The workshop was outstanding, spot-on, and filled with practical guidance. I’m so glad I attended!” — Workshop Participant  

Catch up on newly-updated “media mentions” for Trinity House Cafe + Market.

Please Join Us In Prayer  
 
We invite you to keep the following needs in prayer and thanksgiving: 

• For the parents who will participate in this coming weekend’s Heaven in Your Home workshop in Culpeper, Va. 
• For all families, as we approach Lent, that they would prepare for this sacred season of journeying with our Lord in prayer, fasting and almsgiving.
• That all families would embrace the small, quiet, daily sacrifices of their own household economy. 
• For married couples, they they would grow in mutual understanding, love, and self-gift.