Chotard Doll

Dear Friends:

The passage from Hebrews today extols the “City of the Living God,” the heavenly Jerusalem where God dwells.  

St. Augustine, whom we celebrate today, wrote The City of God,  a complex work which ultimately holds up this Holy City as a contrast to our earthly dwellings.

But it is Psalm 84:9 which speaks to my heart:

For one day in your courts is better than a thousand in my own room,
And to stand at the threshold of the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of the wicked.

I like to remember that as part of my baptismal commitment I was “receive[d] …into the household of God” by the congregation assembled.

I picture myself standing with one foot on the threshold, holding open the door to the courts of the Lord for the world, and my other foot firmly planted in this world.

A holy light emanates from that City. It makes me consider what my next steps will be.

What am I called to do? How can I share some of the holy presence of God, which shines from that city, with the everyday circumstances of my earthly home?

Isn’t that what the Lord calls us to do?

Faithfully,

—Chotard