Friday, 2/7/14
The readings today
give us John the Baptist and King David, two godly heroes, on whom we might
model our lives. They have the failing, though, of being centuries away from
us. Maybe we should find someone closer to focus on. The trouble with that
is, as Jesus told us yesterday, a prophet is without honor among his own
people.
That word “prophet”
is interesting. In the Bible it is one who lends his mouth to God, letting God speak through him. Is there
anyone close to us who fits that description”
I just read a review
of a study that gathered data on people who keep practicing religion as they
grow older. I was surprised to read that the main influence bringing that about
was the example of, not the mothers of church-goers, but their fathers.
Once when sickness
kept my mother away from church for two weeks she found skipping the long walk so
agreeable that without being sick she found reasons not to go. My Dad never
missed, but he only went to confession and communion at Christmas and Easter.
When I asked him
about that, he said, “Tom, I’m what they call a Practical Catholic.” My thoughtless rejoinder to that stunned my mother. I said, “If you are just a Practical
Catholic, what do we call mother? 'Practically a Catholic?'”
Anyway, many of us
came to know God through fathers who did more for us than John the Baptist and
King David.
Your belief in God
can be buttressed by thinking of him as the inventor of DNA, and as the mind and
the power that keeps millions of galaxies spinning, but if you want to get
intimate with him you call him Father.
1 comment:
That was a mean, terrible thing to say about your mother, Did you get a spanking? Theresa
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