Friar’s Corner: Fatherhood a great gift among many
Jeremiah 20: 10-13; Psalm 69:8-10, 14, 17 and 33-35; Romans 5:12-15; Matthew 10:26-33
Happy Father’s Day to all fathers. We offer our special prayers for our father, who helped give us and provide for our early life and to all fathers. God planned for life in about a five-day window once a month. Human life begins at conception. There is no “shop manual” with each child, male or female, who is unique and different. Life is a learning process for all of us. After birth there comes about twenty years of providing for, educating and training that new life to be productive in that unique life. God offers us many special gifts to help fathers and mothers in the unique divine process.
These weeks of riots about the death of a few black men is certainly shocking and needs to be addressed. Yet we don’t want to think about more than three hundred thousand, (300,000) innocent and helpless new citizens whose lives are being ripped out of their mothers’ wombs each day and thrown into the garbage. Few people are concerned about these poor U.S. citizens. Which is the greater sin? What will be the eternal punishment for our government allowing and encouraging abortions in these “Planned Parenthood Death Camps?” If we saw at Sunday services what these “clinics” are doing, we would rise up and close them the next day. Yet our church is virtually silent about these facts.
New flight plan
Shifting direction to my “new flight plan,” after Pentecost I wanted to show some Biblical verses that the Holy Spirit gives to all of us. Yet Pentecost was followed with two major aspects of our faith, the Holy Trinity and Jesus offering us our daily bread in the Holy Eucharist all over the world.
St. John shows us the major works of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus told the disciples about at the Last Supper. The Holy Spirit teaches us God’s truths about life. He reminds us of what Jesus did and said. He witnesses to what comes from God or from the devils. And the Holy Spirit guides us through our lives so we can help God make the world a better place to live in and ultimately at the end of our life get to heaven. This reflection will be the first of four consecutive weeks looking at some of the gifts God offers us.
The last vision St. John had of heaven, In Revelation 22:1-2, he said, “Then the angel showed me the river of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God (the Father) and of the Lamb (Jesus) down the middle of the street. On either side of the river were the trees of life, with their twelve crops of fruit, yielding fruit each month. The leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations.” This water flows into the seven sacraments of Christ’s church and into our daily prayer life. Each sacrament gives us different divine power to live life in His kingdom.
Gifts of Baptism
At Baptism, we get a total of 10 gifts. The first three we call “theological virtues,” of Faith, Hope and Charity or love. These are primary for understanding our faith. We all also receive these gifts listed in Isaiah 11:2,
1) wisdom to make right judgments,
2) understanding to know God’s plans for us,
3) counsel to make right judgments,
4) fortitude to resist and overcome evil things
5) knowledge to know and grow in God’s ways,
6) piety to have reverence or respect for God
7) fear or respect for God and losing His love.
These gifts provide necessary aids for living our individual lives.
As we look at these various groups of gifts, we get a better understanding of how they work. We also get a better insight on how the Holy Spirit “melts us, molds us, fills us and uses us” to help others. As we understand this we can more fully “stand under the spout where the glory comes out.” This was a famous saying of Fr. Michael Scanlan encouraging us to be more open in our daily prayer life to allow God’s graces in us to bear the fruit St. Paul said will grow in us. These fruits are found in Galatians 5:22: love, joy, peace, patient endurance, kindness, generosity, faith, mildness and chastity or self-control according to our life’s mission. Our fruit trees are supposed to bear fruit twelve times a year, and our leaves used to heal others.
These are a few new thoughts from my airport tower in the Allegheny mountains. Blessings to Fathers and all of us on our journey of life. What is God’s fruitful flight plan for your life?
Safe blessings, the little flying eagle,
+ Father Bob Hilz
fbhilz@gmail.com
(© 2020 Father Bob Hilz, TOR)
