where you decide it's Home

I have been known to call our Austria campus Home.  Some are surprised at this, others shocked, but I honestly think nothing of it.

As I walked into the vastness of St. Peter's Square, I was at home.  Somehow, being amongst 249,999 other Catholics didn't phase me in the least.  The intimacy and communion between all the faithful was comforting, and I could have sat in the hubbub for hours more.

Kneeling at Blessed John Paul II's tomb in St. Peter's Basilica, I simultaneously felt like an ant and an elephant.  The blessing of being a Catholic in a Catholic Church is that it is familiar.  Despite the tour groups passing through behind me, I might as well have stayed there forever.  Again, I felt at home.

This is Home.  I am finally where I belong.

Yeah, this is Home.  I've been searching for a place of my own.

Now I've found it.

With a hushed heart I approached the door to the Opus Dei chapel.  Silently, I pushed open the door, and entered the room.  I knelt, I reached out, and for several moments, I touched the glass surrounding St. Josemaria's tomb.  His holiness was tangibly present to me.  Now.  Now, at last, I had found my home.

It's not exactly simple for me to understand how I can walk through the streets of Rome, wander through alleyways in Assisi, and feel like I've been there my whole life.  Like I belong there.  This is why I am hesitant to call my home in Virginia my sole home.  I miss people in the States, but I am not homesick in the least.  Because somehow, I find home wherever I am.

I have decided that Home is ultimately where you decide it's Home.