O salutaris hostia,                                O healthful victim-slain-in-sacrifice,

quae caeli pandis ostium:                    who throws open the door of heaven:

bella premunt hostilia--                        enemies are pressing wars—

da robur, fer auxilium!                        give strength, bring help!

Uni trinoque Domino                        To the one and three-together Lord

sit sempiterna gloria                           let there be everlasting glory;

qui vitam sine termino                        life without end

nobis donet in patria.                          let [that one] give us as a present in the homeland

I’ve known this Latin hymn since I was a child, and I’ve always been intrigued by it.  It’s so short, so spare and compact (in Latin, at least), and so intense.

The translation given above is my own—not very poetic, but I’ve tried to keep it as spare and intense as the original.

Even after all these years, I still hear this hymn as a heart-cry from the depths of a universal human experience:  the awareness of our own littleness, our vulnerability, and the longing for a safe harbor—for home.

My sense of home has been shaken at times.  On a trivial level, a while back the house I live in was “invaded” for the better part of a month by workers replacing all the windows. 

On a more profound level, the city of my birth (New Orleans) was battered, flooded, and depopulated—and it is clear that whatever emerges from the devastation will be something different.  Katrina killed “my” New Orleans.  And I found myself deeply shaken, riding a roller coaster of turbulent emotions.

What’s curious about my reaction to the tragedy of New Orleans is the fact that the city was only my actual physical home from the time of my conception until six weeks after I was born.  I have no conscious memories whatsoever of living in New Orleans as my home.

Nevertheless, for a variety of reasons, New Orleans has been and is a deep psychological and spiritual anchor for my being.  Which leads me to ponder the mystery of “home.”

What exactly is “home”?

The hymn offers some clues:

• home is where I feel welcomed (“who throws open the door”)
• home is where I feel safe (where no “enemies are pressing”)
• home is where I am valued and given gifts (donet, from donare, to give as a present)

I would add, “home” isn’t necessarily limited to place.  I can feel “at home” in a place entirely new to me, if I feel welcomed, safe, and valued.  In fact, the older I get, the more it seems to me that “home” lies in my relationships more than in place.

Home is my husband and me sleeping side by side nested like spoons.

Home is old friends who know my story because they were there when it happened.

Home is new friends who understand my deep values because they share them.

Home, the old hymn suggests, is God, who gives us as a gift a sharing in the life of the “one and three-together”—a life that has no end.  And this is not “pie in the sky when we die”—it begins now, as we allow our human friendships and loves to reveal to us the divine Friend and Lover who “throws open the door” for us and longs to welcome us in.