Recently I said to my mother, who is in her late 90s, “It’s time for me to go home.” She responded, “This is your home, but I know you have to go to your other home.”

I’ve had this same conversation outwardly and inwardly now for more than 38 years. Where is home? With every assignment since my first as a parochial vicar, including four pastorates, I’ve had to establish a new “home.” It helps us, as priests, to ask the question, as everyone else must, “What makes a house a home?”

There are some basic human factors that help us feel at home. Over time, we get comfortable with our surroundings. We make it more of our own with furniture, pictures, trinkets and other personal touches. We get to know people — those we live and work with — and other parishioners. At the beginning of every new assignment, I would leave my family home after a visit there and say, “I’m going back now.” After making some of those typical adjustments, I would sooner or later verbalize, “I’m going home.” Yet my family always makes it clear that my house of origin remains my home. As with many things in life and faith, both can be true.

The Gospel of Mark, with all of its brevity, has intricacies in this regard that are worth our reflection.

At Home in Capernaum

As the second chapter opens, we are told Jesus is at “home” in Capernaum (Mk 2:1). He has moved away from his family residence in Nazareth and begun his public ministry. Already he has been in various places. But Capernaum is home, where, evidently, Jesus shares a house with his disciples. This creates a simple and basic understanding: Wherever Jesus is, that is home.

That’s a spiritual reality we can ponder at length. Reflect on the many styles of life that people live, including ourselves. Sometimes we are almost nomadic, sometimes quite settled. If we welcome and recognize the presence of the Lord, wherever we are is home. Still, we need a base of operations, a springboard for going forth, and a place for peace and rest when we return.

After Jesus and the disciples cross the Sea of Galilee, they come to a new place. There have been healings, miracles, commissionings, teachings and conversations. Jesus is on the move, full throttle into his ministry. Yet, we are told, he is “home” (Mk 3:20). There, he and the disciples have more in-depth conversations, a sort of freedom to be themselves.

Where are we free to be our true selves? Is this with a brother priest, a family member, a trusted friend? Given the layers of our priestly lives, we need to know around whom we are most at home. We might want to ask ourselves about those parts of our lives we do not let others see. What would allow us to share more deeply, to be more open? Maybe we still have a ways to go to be “at home” with our true selves.

Jesus makes one more appearance at his home in Capernaum later in Mark, in the ninth chapter, where a lesson in humility is imparted upon disciples concerned about their importance. In his home, he places a child in their midst, inviting them to see him in people who otherwise seem to be of little or no account (Mk 9:33-37).

We all have places to which we’ve been called where we might not normally go. Poverty-stricken neighborhoods; stress-filled emergency rooms; shelters for the distressed; cold, harsh prisons … when the phone rings, we go. And there we find someone who brings Christ Jesus home to us. Someone, whose need or whose dignity would otherwise not be evident to us, has shown us a new measure of grace. We’ve discovered a new place to feel “at home” with others, with those we serve, with those who matter.

Home Away from Home

The Gospel of Mark also tells us of two places Jesus visits, but where he very much feels at home. On his way to his saving death, he stops at Bethany, at the home of Simon — a leper! (How many of us would be relaxed in that situation?) There, Jesus is treated like a royal guest, anointed on the head by an anonymous woman (14:3), a moment of pleasure for one who would soon die. In what homes have we priests been welcomed with special hospitality, with surprising joy? A “home away from home,” a “second home” — friends and extended family who accept us for who we are. They treat us as one like themselves and yet as someone who has a special place in their lives. We need to allow ourselves the joy of being at home in the homes we visit. How is our dying-to-self discipleship impacted here?

Last, there is the Upper Room (“my guest room”) in the house of “the master” in Jerusalem (Mk 14:14). Jesus is quite aware of this house’s detail — he’s been there before. Here, he will offer his greatest gift — his Passover sacrifice transformed into his body and blood. Here we most especially learn to imitate him, to open our hearts to him, to let him transform us. Perhaps this is the “inner room” he speaks of when he invites us to deep, personal prayer. This inner room is the place we pray best: a personal space, a church, a chapel, an adoration setting. Are we guests in this sacred setting or are we comfortably seated with a sense of belonging?

In Matthew and Luke, Jesus laments, “The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Mt 8:20; Lk 9:58). But this phrase is missing in the Gospel of Mark. Perhaps that’s because, as we have seen, he has several places where he is at home. Hopefully, we do as well, because he abides with us! The rectory, apartment, home or building that houses us should be a place of comfort, rest, peace, welcome and freedom to be ourselves. Sometimes, it takes a while for us to feel that way, though. Our family home, our friends and parishioners who welcome us, those places we go in ministry — these, too, provide us with human and spiritual qualities which form us in our priesthood.

Thankfully, in the Gospel of Mark, the Son of Man has found places to lay his head, and so have we. Let’s then rephrase the question from “What makes a home?” to “Who makes a home?”

FATHER JEFF NOBLE is pastor of Queen of the World Parish in St. Marys, Pennsylvania.