I Prepare a Place for You!

A Homily for the 5th Sunday of Easter 2026

It is perhaps one of the most underappreciated of all the Easter miracles we hear about in the Acts of the Apostles this holy season, but we hear it today at the end of our first reading: “Even a large group of priests were becoming obedient to the faith!” Now that truly is a miracle! Even the priests… the priests were becoming obedient!! Imagine that!

Of course I’m going to suggest to you that the reference to “priests” here is much broader than the Jewish Religious leaders of Jesus’ day or the Ordained Clergy of today’s Catholic Church. The call to obedient faith is a call to all who, through baptism, share in the priestly ministry.

“YOU,” Peter tells us, “are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”

The call to obedient faith is truly a universal call. We are all called to participate in priestly ministry and to be faithful to that call. And I would offer to you that the fulfillment of that call is laid out simply enough in one single phrase spoken by Jesus: “I prepare a place for you.” That is the heart of our priestly vocation. That is the fundamental act of every priest. And we live in a time when renewed obedience to that call is needed more than ever!

Obedience to the faith for us means fidelity to the art of hospitality. The spiritual writer Henri Nouwen once defined hospitality as follows: “It means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger (the other) can enter and become friend instead of enemy. Hospitality is not a subtle invitation to adapt the lifestyle of the host (recreating the stranger, or the other, in our own image), but the gift of a chance for the stranger to find his or her own life in God.”

Jesus prepares a place for each of us. Yes, definitely in the heavenly dwelling places. But he has also prepared a place for each of us here and now. And that place is our own priestly calling. The questions is: Are we willing to boldly occupy that place? Because if we are not then we cannot fulfill our priestly vocation to prepare a place for neighbors, strangers, and all those who are so very other than us.

After over 32 years as an ordained priest, I think I’ve finally come to realize, in whatever I’m doing and wherever I am doing it, my fundamental work is to prepare, or create, a space for the stranger to step into and become friend and find his or her own unique relationship with God. I am called to create the space, and what is harder to do sometimes, is to hold that space open so God can enter and do the work God alone can do.

The last 9 years of my life in ministry I have been a director of formation programs for the young men who come to us in Holy Cross to seek their vocation. It is privileged work and it is precious work. And what I must do, in order for me to be obedient to the faith, to be faithful to my own vocation, is create a space that these young men can step into and there encounter God. And that encounter can sometimes be quite surprising, even upsetting. It can often be wild and raucous. And in the heat of it I must hold the space open and resist my own temptation to intervene, to try to fix things, or to assert my own limited vision. The work is God’s. But strangely enough God won’t do that work if I, if we, are not committed to creating and holding that free space open.

This is the work we are all called to do to fulfill our priestly calling: Create a space for the stranger. A space where God can step in and transform the other as God sees fit, not as we see fit. And we must be steadfast, keeping our feet firmly planted, while holding that space open even when things get wild and we are tempted to recreate the stranger, or the other, in our own image rather than letting God awaken and arouse his image in them.

More than ever we need to exercise our priestly call. We need to look around ourselves and put our hearts into creating free spaces for others, those who are often overly othered in our world, spaces they can step into and discover the God who loves them and calls them to create and hold such free spaces as well.

I would like to close with a brief “Meditation on Hospitality” adapted from the works of Henri Nouwen and, in doing so, encourage each of us to recommit ourselves to the obedience of faith and fidelity to our own priestly call:

Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them the space where change can take place.

Hospitality is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer a freedom undisturbed by dividing lines.

Hospitality is not to lead our neighbor into a corner where there are no alternatives left, but to open a wide spectrum of options for choice and commitment.

Hospitality is not an educated intimidation with good books, good stories, and good works, but the liberation of fearful hearts so that words can find root and bear ample fruit.

Hospitality is not a method of making our God and our way of life the criteria of happiness, but the opening of an opportunity to others to find the One God and the life to which he calls them.