Matthew 23; 1-12Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time. November 5th, 2017
One of the lines in the Gospel today is used by Bible Fundamentalist to try and prove the Catholic Church is “unbiblical.” “Call no man on earth thy Father, for thou hast only one Father, who art in Heaven.” Sadly, many of these folks are ex-Catholics. But I would argue, Ex-Catholics who left a Church and her teachings that they never really knew, even though they may think they know them. But this passage nevertheless does seem to support a “anti Catholic” position on the part of many Christians.
For if the bible said what it says, how can we as Catholics, call the priest, “Father?” Before we take closer look at this verse, its important to state a very important rule when reading, praying and studying the Bible--Sacred Scripture, and that is, you can’t take a few verses out of the bible without looking at the whole. Our fundamentalist bible friends may seem to know the bible, but what they usually know is just a handful of verses taken out of context, and mostly of which seemed to go against the Catholic Church. Anyone can, in fact, make the bible say anything that want when it is read it apart from the Catholic Church from whence it came.
A good question to ask those who use this verse in a decidedly anti-Catholic way is, “Don’t you call the man who is the biological source of your being, dad. Isn’t that the same thing as “Father.”? Or don’t you call the person at school who helps you to learn, “teacher,” for Jesus also said, “Call no man on earth your teacher.” So obviously, Jesus did not and could not mean that you could not call someone on earth your father or your teacher. And as a matter of fact, we hear St. Paul in 1st Corinthians 4:14-16. St. Paul writing to the Christians in Corinth, addresses them as “my beloved children. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then to be imitators of me.” Does this mean that St. Paul sinned by claiming to be a “Father in Christ?” Of course not, because St. Paul himself was a Catholic Priest, in fact, a bishop. And as such, he, Father Paul, was actually the origin of their spiritual childhood. In other words, when Bishop Paul preached the Gospel and baptized them, he literally became their spiritual father, a father in a greater and deeper sense than their own biological fathers—for he is the source of their eternal life, the way they were birthed into eternal life.
This leads us to the deeper meaning of this Gospel text and others like it. Matthew uses the word Father to describe God 44 times, and St John uses it 115 times. Jesus is really reminding those present when he spoke these words of today’s Gospel that God the Father is the source and origin of all fatherhood. All fatherhood and all authority have their source in God the father, just as all of life has its source in Him. Consequently, all true fatherhood and all true authority must keep God the Father as its origin and guide or it becomes corrupted. Authentic Fatherhood comes from God, who the Son revealed as, “Our Father.”
Jesus tells this to the people because the Pharisees lived a life of false piety, meaning that they lived piety on the outside but not on the inside, on the inside their hearts were far, far from God. They were full of pride, they were rich, that is, self-sufficient. In other words, they were full of themselves, not humble before the Lord—Consequently, They did not know the Father! Consequently, they didn’t realize that their spiritual fatherhood and authority over the people, both to rule and to teach, stemmed from God the Father.
So much could be learned from these words of Jesus, which are also addressed to the world today, which is really in a crisis of “Fatherhood.” They (Jesus’ words that is) speak of the interior life, that we must be connected to the God the Father not only by appearances or in name, but we must be united to Him on the inside, our hearts must be converted to Him in and through Christ Jesus.
And so, through today’s Scripture passage, Jesus speaks to all Christians today and warns us about being hypocritical. He warns us that to be Christian means more than just being born into a faith or claiming the name, but that the inward person must be more and more deeply renewed and converted to God, God who is not only a father, but THE FATHER. A faithful child of God the Father must struggle to carry out in heart, mind and deeds what he says and claims to be. And a faithful child of God must humbly realize that the source of their divine filiation, that is their divine childhood, has it source and origin in the source of all paternity--God the Father.
While God enjoys the fullness of Paternity, earthly fathers can too participate in this Paternity when they are open and contribute to new life. Similarly, the Church teaches us that all of those who foster the true faith through baptism and preaching should also been seen as parents in faith. Anyone who helps to foster true faith and love of God, by words and most especially in deed (i.e. love of neighbor) can participate in this paternity, by begetting others in the faith. However, one can only participate in this divine paternity of God to the degree that they have allowed themselves to be converted to the love of God the Father through Christ Jesus His Son.
In a world where half of the child born today have a chance of not having a father at home by the time the reach their 18th birthday, we are truly in a crisis of fatherhood. It is hard to know God our Father if we do not know an earthly father. And earthly fathers will only be as successful in fathering their children to the decree they have allowed themselves by the power of the Holy Spirit, to be converted to Christ Jesus who reveals to us the Heavenly Father. Bad fathers will give children a wrong notion of the Fatherhood of God. If a father tells his child to forgive others, does him himself forgive? If he tells a child not to steal or to lie, does he himself steal or lie? If he tells his child to be kind is he himself kind to others. And if he tells the child to love God, does he himself love God with his whole heart, soul and mind. The same goes for mothers, of course.
Just as earthly fathers can only give what they have, spiritual parents can only give to others what they themselves have received, they can only give what they themselves live—this goes as well for us spiritual Fathers—us priests. Words only or piety only, cannot do it today any more than they could for the Pharisees. Our hearts must be converted on the inside, if our words are going to have any effect they must be followed by deeds flowing from a true conversion to the truth of Jesus Christ and taught by His Church, through our spiritual fathers in Christ, the pope, bishops and priests.
We all must grow in our faith and realization that God is truly our Father and we are truly His children. A small child totally trusts his father. He follows him around all day and constantly asks him for his help. A child lets nothing keep him from his father, not even his mistakes. We too must trust our Father God like this—we must be as a child. We must humbly follow Our Father around all day long. And when we make mistakes, namely sins, we must immediately without hesitation run into the Father’s arms and there in the confessional, tell Him the truth about what we have done-no excuses, and that we are truly sorry and that we will try to do better with His help of course.
To not know and understand God as a Father who cares for us intimately and not to invoke Him for His help is to become orphans without hope. Denial of the Fatherhood of God is to create a culture of death. It is by the Fatherhood of God that all fathers and all families, biological and spiritual are understood. Even if we have been hurt by fathers, biological or spiritual, we must seek to forgive them and know that Our Father in heaven is not like that, He loves us even when no one else does-He is ever faithful.
Let us turn to the intercession of St. Joseph to help us. He is the perfect example of earthly fatherhood for all fathers and those in authority. HE was the humble servant, who used his authority and father in service to others. He will help lead us to Jesus, asleep in his arms. Jesus lead Joseph to perfect union with the Heavenly Father, hence he could be a father to Jesus and an example and source of help to all Christians who are called to share in the paternity of God the Father by leading others to Him, thus begetting spiritual child in Christ Jesus.
