Sometimes, it can be hard to find the words to express grief after someone you love has died.

But over the last few weeks, a woman I know has done that with remarkable clarity, power, and grace.

Her name is Amy Welborn. Some of you may recognize the name. She’s written several books on the Catholic faith, and also writes a popular blog. Her husband, Michael Dubriel was for a time an editor at the newspaper Our Sunday Visitor, and has also written a number of books on the faith, including one that’s quite popular: “The How-to Book of the Mass.”

Earlier this month, Amy got an unexpected phone call, telling her that Michael had collapsed that morning at the gym. They were unable to revive him. He left behind Amy, and two young boys. Michael Dubruiel was 50.

Since that awful day, Amy has been processing her grief on her blog, sharing her agony and her loss with thousands of readers around the world.

And the other day, she wrote this about her husband and his faith:

“He prayed,and he knew intimately all those words I have been praying – or trying to pray – so intensely over the past week. Thirsting for God. Rescuing from the snares of the enemy. Letting Christ live in me, being consumed, taken over by Christ, the Risen One, alive in Him. Praying for that. Every day. Asking God for mercy, for forgiveness, for peace. For the total embrace of Love.

The hope strikes me, again with great force. His prayers have been answered. All those prayers, all of the seeking and yearning and hoping have found their blessed end.”

Amy Welborn embraces this beautiful, consoling hope: that the man she loves, the father of her children, has at last made it home.

This morning, I’d like to ask all of us to think about that one simple, beautiful word.

Home.

Twice in this Sunday’s gospel we hear it. We find it at the beginning, when we learn that Jesus returned to Capernaum, and, as Mark puts it, “it became known that he was at home.”

And then later, when Jesus cures that paralytic, in that astounding moment he tells the man “Rise, pick up your mat, and go home.”

And he does. He goes home.

He goes home.

It is the place where we all belong. That place where we are cared for, fed, loved. It is where the prodigal son returned for his father’s embrace. And it is where the cured paralytic went, with his mat under his arm and his sins, incredibly, forgiven.

As much as this gospel is about healing, and forgiveness, it is also about going home. Spiritually, and physically. And that, I think, is also a vital part of Christ’s message. Because, as this gospel makes clear, he is the way home — the means by which all of us who are broken, or sick, can pick up our mats and be well. He is our guide back to the Father.

Thomas Merton once wrote that our ultimate goal for each of us is to return to the father’s house.

How appropriate, then, that we hear this reading on the last Sunday before we begin the solemn season of Lent — the penitential time when we look into our hearts and ask ourselves: “What do I need to do to return to the father’s house?”

How have I gotten lost?

What are the wrong turns I’ve made?

How can I find my way back?

One of the memorable details of this gospel episode is the ingenuity of the man involved. He was not deterred in trying to reach Jesus. When he couldn’t get in through the door, he got his friends to bring him through the roof.

He knew that the way to God…was up!

He didn’t lose heart — or hope.

Are any of us even half that persistent?

Faith requires perseverance. It demands resilience. It asks us not to quit, even when the odds are against us, and other things or other people seem to be getting in the way.

And it also helps, of course, to have friends.

The paralytic could never have reached Jesus on his own. He needed support – those who would carry him, and help him. He wasn’t afraid to ask others: “Take me to Jesus. Help me get there.” They helped to make his miracle possible. In a sense, I think, that paralytic discovered what it means to be Church – to experience the miracle of Christ in the company of others. It is not a solitary experience.

And what he sought is what all of us are seeking – what all of us are here today praying for.

Each of us wants to walk on our own, healed. We want to find our way back home, our way to God.

Lent is the moment to begin that journey.

In the bulletin this week, I wrote that Lent is a gift. Treasure that gift. Take advantage of it. Over the next six weeks, pray more deeply. Live more simply. Turn down the volume of life. It is a time for us to give something to those who have nothing – just as God has given so much to us — and to open our hearts to God’s tender mercies.

It is also an opportunity to reconcile with God through the sacrament of confession.

There was a story in the New York Times the other day about a parish in Connecticut. For years, the confessionals there were closed – literally nailed shut. Ten years ago, the pastor finally had them reopened because, as he put it, “Salvation isn’t just a one-time deal.” You have to keep working at it. And now hundreds show up every week to receive the sacrament. We offer that here, six days a week – we’re one of the few parishes in this area that makes reconciliation available that frequently.

We shouldn’t let an opportunity like that pass us by. Especially during Lent. Especially during a time like this, when so many of us are facing harder challenges, tougher problems. We need the grace of this sacrament like never before.
And perhaps, we need to draw closer to God like never before.

Lent is a time to seek out His presence, just like that paralytic did, and to ask God to heal whatever paralysis has frozen our hearts.

Then, we too, may pick up our mats and go – heading to the place where we are cherished, the place where we are safe, the place we all yearn to be.

Home.