Vincent Kundukulam
One of the social institutions that has regained its lost glory during the pandemic is house or family. I would like to elaborate this point referring to a WhatsApp message which turned out to be viral in social media in the beginning months of pandemic. It was about a conversation between Devil and God. The devil says to the Lord, “I closed all your churches”. Then the Lord replies, “I have then transformed all houses into churches”. This sarcastic note explains how much the family has become the centre of religious living during the lockdown period.
At a primary level, house is a shelter within which the family meets the basic needs of life: eat and sleep. However, at a deeper level, it designates not merely the material structure but the dynamic aspects of family life. In house, man seeks a place where he can be ‘at home’. It is a condition of human existence. With Covid-19, parishes organize religious activities in and through homes. This new situation gives rise to the need of considering homes the privileged place of faith formation.
Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962), the French philosopher, in his The Poetics of Space (2003) claims that house is our corner of the world. It offers us protected intimacy to take shelter and to dream in space. He compares the house to a secure sanctuary whose filaments fire together the thoughts, memories and dreams of humankind. Referring to Jules Michelet’s depiction of bird’s nest, Bachelard observes that there is a consubstantial relationship between man and house as it is a space of man’s suffering and initiatives. Individuals build the meaning of intimacy in the interiors of homes. By way of memories, man attaches meanings to house: it is an abode of security, calmness, safety, repose and sanctuary against eternal threats.
Today, because of work from home, houses are no more private spaces. Until the start of covid-19, malls were centres of consumption. During the pandemic, solitary consumptions increase and houses get transformed into hubs of global marketing. There is a rise in domestic violence as well as in mental health issues. These mutations affect the identity of home as a source of intimacy, security and comfort. The negative impacts on family life must be the prime concern of formators of faith now. There is a need to revisit the imageries of home in the bible and resituate house as a space of peace, happiness, hope and salvation.
In OT, the Jerusalem temple which was built by Solomon stands for the realization of Yahweh’s will to have an abode among his people (I K 8, 27-30). However, God was not tied down to the Jerusalem temple. Whenever Israelites were unfaithful to Yahweh, He warned them through the prophets that His presence will be guaranteed only if they lead a righteous life (Jer 7, 5-7). The book of Ezekiel chapter 10 is about God’s glory leaving Jerusalem. We read, “Then the glory of the Lord went out from the threshold of the house and stopped above the cherubim” (Eze 10, 18). There are also passages where the Lord takes initiatives to purify His people and set up again His dwelling place among them (Eze 36, 22-28). All these texts show that according to OT the true house is not material or symbolic but spiritual. The condition to be in the house of the Lord is to have a humble and contrite heart (Is 57, 15).
In NT, whenever Jesus visited homes, he gave peace and salvation to all those who responded positively to his call for conversion. Lockdown is the time for the educators of faith to work with God in order to build Christian houses as worthy abode of Trinity. Our programmes for the renewal of families must be such that they accept Jesus as the Reference of life, and they get freed from ghetto mentalities so as to accept all people irrespective of creed and caste. Narrations related to families given in NT are to be taken as models for family catechesis, always emphasizing both vertical and horizontal dimensions of Christian life: love of God and love of neighbour.
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