NOW YOUR FATHER, ALWAYS GOD'S SON

Monday in the Second Week of Easter
Jn 3:1-8

When I became a priest, people started calling me “Father”. Funny the first time I heard my dad and mom called me “Father”. With my mom and dad, whose ages are twice mine, calling me “father” I suddenly felt like a grandfather instead!

But why do we call a priest “father”?

A father begets a child. A father helps a mother to give birth. The same may be said about priests, but be careful not to get me wrong.

Priests are called “fathers” because they are “married” to the Church, our Mother in faith. Priests are fathers because they beget us in baptism. In baptism we are born from the womb of the Church. Priests baptize us. They are our fathers, too.

When we were born into this world, we were children only of our parents. But when we were reborn through baptism, we became children of God. Without baptism, we are human beings only. Through baptism, we are destined to divine immortality.

It is a great honor to be a priest. But it is the greatest gift to become a child of God. It is very humbling to be addressed to as “Father”. But it is totally overwhelming to know that God is my Father. It can be moving to hear my parents call me “Father” and kiss my anointed hands. But it is always heaven to hear God call me “son” and allow me to kiss His loving heart.

Once a friend asked me, “Which is the most important date for you: your ordination day or your day of baptism?” “The day I was baptized,” I replied. In fact, I remember the date so well: April 30, 1967 – twenty-eight years and forty-two days before I became Father Bobby.