Realizing the Love of God

Title: Realizing the Love of God

Date: February 25, 1988 - Thursday of the First Week of Lent

Readings: Esther 12:14-16,23-25 / Psalm 138:1-2,2-3,7-8 / Matthew 7:7-12

Our Gospel offers us a line which should never fail to touch us with the absurdity of being harsh to those whom we love. "Would one of you hand his son a stone when he asks for a loaf, or a poisonous snake when he asks for a fish?" Jesus goes on to tell us that if even we who are a sinful people know how to give that which is good to our children, just imagine what our Heavenly Father has in store for us.

I wonder though whether or not Jesus would use this analogy today? It seems that the depravity among men and women has reached such a monstrous point that even the children are no longer safe. Abortion in our society is well into its second decade, so commonplace that most of us hardly give it a thought. The papers and television are filled with the news of children being abused both by their parents and by those in whose care they are placed. Recently there was a story about a woman who hired a hit man to kill her husband. We are not talking about minor squabbles in families. All these concerns involve murder and abuse. This does not make matters easy for us who try their best in living out Christianity. Yesterday our Gospel had Jesus teaching his friends how to call God, our Father, in the Lord's prayer. How do we teach children in this city about a loving Father with situations so bad, with divorce plaguing half of all marriages, or where the mother gives her favors to a different man on any given night? It is not easy.

I would encourage you all, as parents and grandparents, as uncles and aunts, as brothers and sisters, and as friends in Christ, to give the kind of witness which will make the Father's love believable. Allow that love to shine out and to touch others through you. Do this especially for the children. God knows it is a tough enough world. We can help make it easier for them. They are the future of our nation and faith. We have to invest in them. Jesus understood this well when he said, "Treat others the way you would have them treat you: this sums up the law and the prophets."