GOD'S CHILDREN IN CHRIST

Friday in the Week Before the Epiphany
Mk 1:7-11

I am an only son.

To be a son is a gift. I did not choose to be a son. I did not choose the father who begot me nor the mother who delivered me. I did not choose the family I was born into. I did not choose and so my being a son is always a gift to me.

To be a son is a gift. My parents wanted to have a son, yes; but they did not decide that I would be a son. They longed, wished, and prayed for a son, but they could not decide who among their children would be a son. They did not choose to make a son out of me; they simply received me and, indeed, a son was I given to them. My being a son is not only a gift to me; it is also a gift to my parents.

To be a son is a gift. Every birth is a letting go. The first time I experienced separation was when I came out of our mother’s womb. As I grow, I have to go through a lot of letting go. My parents have to experience separation from me many times too. The reason for all these partings in life is the fact that I am not only a gift to my parents, but to others as well. When I became a priest, my being a gift takes on a more definite form. My parents’ gave their only son as gift to God and His People.

We are God’s children – all of us, sons and daughters. We are all His gifts to our parents, to the Church, and to the world. Then in turn, we are the gifts of our parents, of the Church, and of the world to God from whom we came in the first place. “Every child,” I read it somewhere, “comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged with man.” Jesus, the Father’s Beloved Son on whom His favor rests, puts an exclamation mark to this quotation. Through Him, we become God’s children too. Do we dare change the exclamation mark into a question mark instead?