Sailing Home

MICHAEL FIGURA ’26, ARCHDIOCESE OF OMAHA

What is the Eucharist for us but the ship that will carry us back to our Beloved, to the God who first loved us and continues to search for us? If we call Mass the Wedding Feast of the Lamb on earth, it is here that God espouses himself to humanity, here that he gives himself to each of us, here that we meet our Beloved.

In his song Ulysses, Josh Garrels recounts the timeless tale of the love of the Greek hero Odysseus which draws him home from the ends of the earth to embrace his beloved. In Ulysses, we see ourselves—wearied, beaten, and at times dejected on our earthly pilgrimage, and yet still searching for the love which has touched us. It is this love that we taste in the Eucharist. Here we truly meet our Beloved and yet also remain separated on our earthly pilgrimage. Still, it is this meeting which reminds us of the beauty we have known and which drives us forward on our journey. Gazing on the Beloved, we forge ahead until the day we are reunited with our Love in our heavenly homeland.