Thursday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 464


And I tell you, ask and you will receive;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks, receives;
and the one who seeks, finds;
and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.


"He fathers forth whose beauty is past change. Praise him."
Gerard Manley Hopkins concluded his sonnet, Pied Beauty, with that homage to God the Father.
Scholars of the New Testament tell us that Jesus taught us to honor God as "our father" although the Hebrew Scriptures rarely use that title of the Lord. This was a singular insight of the Nazarene.
They also suggest, in these our troubled times, that we study carefully how Jesus used that word. Given our history of innumerable wars and their enduring emotional impact, a cult of alcoholism and a tsunami of drug addiction, many men in the United States cannot handle the challenges of adulthood and marriage, much less fatherhood. Some have handed their children snakes when they asked for fish, and scorpions when they asked for eggs. They simply know no better.
Consequently, their children tremble with anguish, not holy fear, when they consider the "Fatherhood" of God. They remember abusive parents and grandparents and stories of cruel great-grandparents. Authority in general has been arbitrary, moody and petulant; not even vaguely paternal.
Jesus was familiar with violence. He saw the vicious injustice of Roman occupation, the indifference of Herodian rulers, and the quisling cowardice of the Pharisees. There were no good shepherds for his people and fewer good fathers.
But Jesus came down from God and he knew another reality which was only suggested by their Jewish religion. He heard his Father's blessing, "You are my beloved son; on you my favor rests." Throughout his life, even amid the violence that chased his family into Egypt, and the whispered threats that pursued his ministry, he knew the reassurance of a Father who loved him. He often spent nights in prayer, resting in God's arms with the confidence of a child.
When we think of God the Father we should think: "The Father of Jesus." Our own dads loved us as best they could and sometimes their love was reassuring and substantial. But they were flawed human beings and Jesus assures us the Father's love is greater than anything we have ever experienced or imagined.
Most of us, as we experience healing, will recall the heroic sacrifices our fathers and mothers made, especially as we understand their times and the challenges they faced. We realize now they were not prepared for parenthood by their families, schools or churches; they were winging it as parents do today. My own mother read "Doctor Spock" devoutly, like the preacher reading his bible.
Healing teaches us to stand in public and declare: "I would not trade my father or mother for any other parent on earth!" The Father of Jesus can do that because his grace is superabundant, beyond anything we can expect or imagine, because "He fathers forth whose beauty is past change. Praise him."