Making Our Home in the Place Jesus Has Prepared, Fifth Sunday of Easter (A), May 3, 2026

Msgr. Roger J. Landry
St. Paul Center, Steubenville, Ohio
Making Our Home in the Catholic Church Conference
Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year A
May 3, 2026
Acts 6:1-7, Ps 33, 1 Pet 2:4-9, Jn 14:1-12

 To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following text guided the homily: 

• The drama of today’s Gospel cannot be overstated. Jesus is on the eve of his passion. He had just washed the apostles’ feet and celebrated the new and eternal Passover with them, but added, that the one who ate his food had raised his heel against him. He was returning to a topic that they had repeatedly tried to ignore or change the subject on: that he would be betrayed to the chief priests and scribes, be mocked, tortured, scourged, crucified and on the third day be raised. Now everything seemed to be coming to a head. And their anxieties were maximized. Jesus, however, was thinking far more about them — his friends, his disciples, his apostles, and about us, his future friends, disciples and apostles — than he was about his own imminent sufferings and physical death. He had just told them that he was telling them everything before it happened, so that when it happened, they might believe. He was revealing everything to them so that after the resurrection, they and we, thanks to St. John’s spirit-helped recollection, might understand the full meaning of his words and actions. What Jesus says, providentially, is at the heart of our retreat on making our home in the Catholic Church.
• Jesus’ first words were “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God. Have faith also in me.” He knew they were going to struggle to accept what he was saying. That they were going to be like sheep without a shepherd when he would be arrested and brought to trial. That, despite his already telling them three times that he would be killed and rise on the third day, they would be absolutely flummoxed when they would see him in whom they had placed their hopes crucified. “Don’t let your hearts be troubled,” he emphasized, and urged them to believe in him with the same faith they’ve always had in God. It was part of his plan. He knew what he was doing. These words echo throughout time. The remedy to our anxieties as we look to the future is to trust in the Lord.
• Jesus says that he is going to prepare a place for us and will come back to take us to be with him, so that where he is, we also may be. Of course, one application of this is anagogical, referring to eternal life. But the same care Jesus has given to our eternal communion he takes with regard to the earthly. His whole life can be summarized as preparing a place for us, a place with him. He became Emmanuel, God-with-us, so that we could be with him. He took on our humanity so that we might become part of his Mystical Body. The Sacraments, especially Baptism, allow us to abide not just with him but within him, and he in us. Just like with David who desired to build a suitable house for God only to have Nathan tell him that God’s plan was to build a house for him, so as we seek to make a home in the Catholic Church, Jesus assures us that he has already prepared one for us. He doesn’t want us troubled, but rather he desires us to trust in him, to trust in the place he has prepared.
• Faith is a rock-solid assurance in which we trust in something based on a trust in someone, we trust in what Jesus says and does because of our trust in him. But the assurance that comes from faith is different than knowledge. The anxious apostles wanted details to buttress their faith. In response to Jesus’ words that they knew the way he was going, because he had already told them repeatedly it was the way of the Cross, the way of the fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophecies, Thomas, on behalf of all of them, blurted: “Master, we do not know where you are going, how can we know the way?” We are often in a similar situation. Supposedly to make trust easier, we ask for a detailed plan, so that we can evaluate it on our own rather, than give full trust to the One who made it. But Jesus brought it back to a trust in him. In response to Thomas’ query as to how he can know the way, Jesus replies:  “I am the Way.” “I am the Truth.” “I am the Life.” He was urging them simply to stay with him, to find their answer in him, to draw their whole life from him, as he sought to lead them to the Father, the ultimate destination of their path, the ground of all reality and the source of all life.
• We’ve heard Jesus’ self-description as the Way, the Truth and the Life so many times that their revolutionary shock value is almost entirely lost on us, but to first century Jewish listeners, they would have heard Jesus saying that he was the full realization of their three deepest religious aspirations. Jews had been beseeching for centuries, “Make known to me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths” (Ps 25:5), and Jesus was saying, “I am the way.” They had been imploring God, “Teach me your decrees” (Ps 119:108) that “I may walk in your truth” (Ps 86:11) and Jesus was saying, “I am the Truth.” They had been praying, “You will show me the path to life” (Ps 16:11) and Jesus was indicating, “I am the Life.” Jesus was saying that he was the personification of all their religious aspirations and the answer to so many of their most insistent prayers. But these aspirations, we know, were not exclusively Jewish. They point to the perennial needs that spring up in every human life. Many times we’re lost, we don’t know where to go, we’re wandering through a valley of darkness with no clear sense of direction, and Jesus says, “I am the Way.” There are many others who are stumped before life’s biggest questions, who are searching for answers and meaning, who don’t know what to believe, who don’t trust because they don’t know whom to trust, and Jesus tells us, “I am the Truth. …You have faith in God, have faith also in me.” And there are countless others who are struggling to have hope, who feel like they have been having the marrow of existence sucked out of them, who are seeking happiness and human fulfillment sometimes in right places, often in wrong, and to all of them, Jesus responds, “I am the Life.” The remedy to our anxieties is with faith to unite ourselves to Jesus, to recognize that he has prepared a place for us with him, to trust as he leads like Abraham on a journey of faith together with him, on a search for truth in him, on a quest for life ultimately drawn from him.
• To use the image given to us by St. Peter in today’s second reading, he wants us to build our life as living stones on him who is the living cornerstone. We’re accustomed sometimes to think of a cornerstone as something immovable. But we know that as we plant a cornerstone to an important building, it seems to remain fixed, but it’s on a little part of planet earth that is rotating on its axis at 1,037 miles per hour, on a planet rotating around the sun at 67,100 miles per hour. The cornerstone is solid, it’s fixed, but there’s still much dynamism happening in other dimensions. So when we fix our bearings solidly on Christ the cornerstone, we know that he’s moving, and he’s constantly calling us to come and to go. Our faith is fundamentally dynamic not static, yet always grounded, always innested, always firmly rooted and built up in him (Col 2:7). Even in the midst of the many changes every disciple experiences along the pilgrimage of earthly life, and as we focus on the often difficult changes that accompany the great blessings of entering into full communion with the Catholic Church, Jesus is telling us, “You faith in God. Have faith in me.” He’s telling us, “While so many things may change, I am the same yesterday, today and forever” (see Heb 13:8). Like the symbolic 144,000 who follow the Lamb wherever he goes (Rev 14:4), he wants us united with him as we follow him to where is he leading, as he seeks to build us up into a spiritual house on him the cornerstone and Peter the rock (Mt 16:18), so that together with Christ, as a chosen race and a royal priesthood, we can make our life a spiritual sacrifice acceptable to the Father through him.
• It’s important for us to ask what it means to build our existence on him, on the place he has prepared for us in his Mystical Body. The Second Vatican Council stressed that the whole people of God through baptism participates in Jesus’ three-fold office of priest, prophet and king. We share in his prayer and sacramental self-giving, in his proclamation of the Gospel and teaching all nations, in his shepherding and guiding others to follow him. Learning from him as our Master and in him passing on what we have learned is the way we cling to him is the truth. Uniting ourselves to him in prayer and in the Sacraments is the way we abide in him who is our life. Following him in things big and small and shepherding others to that same path is the way we make Him our way. In today’s first reading, we see this three-fold work on display. As the Church began to grow, the apostles recognized that they could not dedicate themselves to the work of prayer and preaching if they themselves simultaneously had to supervise the Church’s charity. So they appointed and laid hands on the first seven deacons to be able to direct the Church’s charitable outreach. Charity was too important to what the Church is to be neglected. As Pope Benedict stressed in Deus Caritas Est, his beautiful 2006 encyclical on charity, charity is as essential to the life of the Church as the proclamation of the Gospel and the celebration of the Sacraments. The three essential works of the Church are kerygma/martyria (preaching with words and body language, even death), leitourgia (public worship and prayer) and diakonia (charity). Each of us disciples, he said, must focus on these three activities, but not necessarily equally. The apostles themselves prioritized prayer and preaching, the deacons prioritized charity, but each of us to some degree participate in all three. We need to ask to what extent we are remaining in Christ the Truth, learning and teaching the gift of faith; how we are remaining in the sacraments and prayer and helping others to pray and to live a sacramental life abiding in Christ the life; how we are following Christ the Way and showing others the way. Each of us has so many opportunities, as missionary disciples of Christ, to pass on the truths of faith, to teach people to pray and worship and to guide them to join us in following the Good Shepherd.
• Someone who did this and from whom we can all learn is from one of the newest saints in the Church, who today would have turned 35 if he hadn’t gone home to God — to the place Jesus had prepared for him in his father’s house, 20 years ago this October 12. St. Carlo Acutis was someone who, very young in life, as soon as he learned about Jesus’ real presence, sought to ground his whole life on this Eucharistic cornerstone. He called the Eucharistic Jesus not just the way but his highway to heaven. He sought to follow him along the path of Eucharistic self-giving, making his life a commentary on the words of consecration. That prayer, that worship, that leitourgia, led quickly to diakonia, to charity, to doing “this” in Jesus’ memory. He cared for the poor and the homeless all throughout Milan. He cared for his fellow students who were struggling with moral problems, or were being bullied, or he needed academic help. And that charity involved passing on as of the greatest importance what he himself had received. He tried to teach them about Jesus’ real presence such that they could build their whole life on him too. He became a catechist to pass on the faith to younger children. And when he began to see some fruit with his classmates and catechism students about the Eucharist, especially through telling them about Eucharistic miracles, he then tried to bring that knowledge to the whole world, teaching himself computer programming and web design so that he would be able to help catechize people across the planet. His work continues to nourish people to this day. He had expressed a desire to be a priest, but that obviously never came to fruition. But in his 15 years of earthly life, and only 8 years of conscious Christian discipleship, he did so much through his faith in God and faith in Christ. Learning from Christ the Truth, receiving life in abundance from Christ the Life, and following Christ along the Eucharistic procession of earthly life and bringing others to join him, he really lived a life pleasing to God. And he inspires us all today to imitate this Eucharistic dependence.
• He understood well, in a precocious way, that at Mass that Jesus’ great building project advances. From the earliest days of Christianity, the saints have stated that the Eucharist builds the Church. Ecclesia de Eucharistia, they said: the Church lives by the Eucharist. The Eucharistic Jesus makes us Christians, living stones together built into a spiritual edifice on him the cornerstone. It’s here that Jesus makes us a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God the Father. It’s here he constructs us into a chosen race, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that we may announce the praises of him who has called us out of darkness into his wonderful light. It’s from here that Jesus sends us out to help everyone else discover that Jesus is the direction they most need in life, the answer to their profoundest questions, the source of life that will lead them to meaning and happiness. It’s here at Mass, together with him, as he teaches us, feeds us and strengthens us for the journey of life, that Jesus wants us to recognize the place that he’s prepared, and to find and make our true home.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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