Coinciding of Celebrations

Today's coinciding of the secular celebration of Fathers' Day and the solemnity of Corpus Christi leads me to reflect upon the beautiful gift of spiritual fatherhood—of the priesthood in particular.  I am so grateful for all the wonderful priests who have touched by life.

These are the men who have reflected not only the light of Christ, but the image of the Father.  They have helped me to understand in a deeper way how much our Father in heaven loves us, how much He provides for us in giving us priests to stand before us with the very human love we desire, to meet us face to face as He cannot do until we finish our time of purification and come before Him at last.

Our own fathers reflect that same image of the Father.  For they too are priests in a sense—by their baptismal priesthood—and carry out their vocation of fatherhood in the domestic church of the family.

I think today also of those who have never had an example of a good father and whose ideas of God the Father have therefore been skewed.  I pray that they will find the Father they seek.

May our Lord bless abundantly all those who reflect His image of fatherhood!  I carry in my heart today in a special way all the priests who have touched my life, particularly as I go to approach the altar and to receive the Body and Blood of Christ on this blessed solemnity.  I pray that all priests may remain faithful to the voice of the Father within them that He may continue to speak through them and to transform them ever more into His face upon this earth.

Offer It Up

Have you ever been told to offer something up? Chances are, if you are like most Americans, your immediate response is resentment at being told what to do and a mental block against the idea—especially if it came from one of your parents.  It matters little whether you may have told others precisely the same thing when you had nothing to suffer.

Well, despite whatever emotional baggage you may carry regarding this idea of offering something up, it does have the power to transform your life. But the enemy will do his best to prevent your realizing it.

“Offer it up,” is such a vague thing to say anyway. We humans do not deal well in vagueness, even when it presents universal truth. We need the concrete specifics that turn that universal truth from something out there into something that penetrates to the deepest recesses of our hearts.

As I mentioned in my last post, sacrifice is a part of our baptismal priesthood. That means that we are called to offer sacrifice to the Father on behalf of others. Unlike the ministerial priest who offers the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross through His role in persona Christi, acting in the person of Christ, we have only the substance of our lives to offer in sacrifice. However, there is certainly enough substance there and it too may be transformed by Christ, if not transubstantiated.

In the sacrifice of the Mass, the priest has the tradition of centuries behind the weight of his words directed toward a specific offering. We need that same specificity in our lives. Although we can simply sacrifice in general for souls or for the world, unless we have a burning zeal like the great saints, we will soon grow lukewarm in our efforts.

We need specific intentions. We need to pray for particular people, for particular situations, for particular healings.  If I say in a moment of suffering that it is for my friend who is struggling, for my godmother, for someone who is going through surgery, or for anyone else for whom I have promised to pray, I have somewhere to direct my pain.  Instead of struggling within myself and wanting to escape, I have a means to bring fruit from my suffering because it is for another.

Even when the suffering seems impossible to offer up because it is too much to endure, we can make that effort of the will.  Then offering it up means transforming it into a prayer moment by moment. Instead of an obstacle to remove, it becomes a sacrifice of love as we lift up to the Lord the name of a loved one, repeating again and again that the suffering is for that one so dear to us.