The Father Of A Family
by Fr. David M. Knight
March 21, 2024
Thursday (Week V of Lent)
Lectionary No. 254
Genesis 17:3-9; Psalm 105; John 8:51-59
"Your God and the God of your descendants after you." Genesis 17:7
To convey the identity of the First Person of the Trinity, Jesus chose the word “Father.” And the word God chose to express the mystery of our graced relationship with him is “family.” To Abraham God said, “I make my covenant and my promise ‘to you and to your descendants.’” Christians call Abraham our “father in faith.” We are filii in Filio, “sons and daughters in Christ, God the Son,” who is also a son of Abraham.
The “grace of our Lord Jesus Christ” is the gift of family relationship with God and with all who, by accepting the Son’s Life (explicitly by Baptism, or implicitly by “Baptism of desire”), are children of the Father. Jesus said all those who accept to “change their minds” (the meaning of metanoia) and identify “brothers, sisters, mother and father” in the light of the Good News, will receive “a hundred times as many” brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers in the extended family of God (Mark 10:20).
Our earthly fathers gave us the name that identifies our covenant with our relatives by blood. Our heavenly Father gives us name that identifies our New Covenant with our relatives in the “Blood of Christ, poured out for all.”
Our Father has made the human race his family and ours.
ACTION: Whenever you deal with another person, think: “This is my brother, my sister.”
PRAYER: “Our Father, who are in heaven, show me my family on earth.”
Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry
