“Our
Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name.”
Jesus gave us a wonderful gift: he brought God into the center of our lives and
taught us that he was like a loving father. Next weekend we will celebrate Father’s
Day. It is a good time to remember that each and every one of us — male and
female alike — is called to mirror the fatherhood of God in our relationships
with others.
*
It
is a great joy for me as a deacon to baptize a child. The joy of administering
the sacrament as an ordained minister of the Church is for me magnified by the
fact that I am a father myself. I have been given the blessing of raising four
wonderful children; and I know — first hand — the joys and responsibilities of
being a father.
The
greatest responsibility of a parental father is to mirror the unconditional
love of our heavenly Father. Fathers have been given a very special mission in
life: they are called to teach their children that God is unconditional love.
And they do this teaching — they carry out this mission — not with books, not
even necessarily with words. They do it by example — by loving their child,
unconditionally, without strings, no matter what.
God
loves each and every one of us in a personal and unconditional way. The seed of
that love is inside of us all. And that seed is watered to grow into a
beautiful flower by the unconditional love we receive from our parents.
But
that flower can still grow even in the absence of parental love, even in the
presence of abuse, of abandonment, of neglect; because that seed is innately
watered by God’s grace. And that flower can still grow even in the harshest
conditions, by our experience of the Gospel, by the sacraments and by the love
of other people.
That
flower blooms in our lives when we make the transition from receiver to giver.
When we say ‘yes’ to the presence of God’s love in our life and share that love
with others — when we live the Gospel.
I
have known people who have suffered greatly because they did not experience the
love of a parental father. But I believe we have a choice: we can spend decades
in depression over what we missed as a child, or we can cross over the bridge,
make the transition from receiver to giver and become a father for others.
We
can become a father for others not only in a parental way. We can be a father
to our children, but we can also be a father to our workers, our students, our
parishioners, our friends ─ to all those with whom we interact. This type of
father is neither male nor female; it is the bearer of unconditional love — it
is the mirror of our heavenly Father.
God’s
love comes to fruition in our lives when we generously let it flow through us
to others. So this #Father’sDay let us thank our heavenly Father for our
blessings. Let us reach out to our parental fathers, living and deceased, with
love and gratitude, with compassion, and if need be, with forgiveness. And let
us make Our Father who art in heaven
visible here on earth through the unconditional fatherly love that we
generously share with others.
……………………………………………………………………………………..
Readers
of this blog might enjoy these books by Deacon Lex. Both are available on
Amazon.com:
Just
to Follow My Friend: Experiencing God’s Presence in Everyday Life
Synchronicity
as the Work of the Holy Spirit: Jungian Insights for Spiritual Direction and
Pastoral Ministry
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