We are fortunate that this year’s celebration of Fathers Day falls on the Feast of Corpus Christi (The Body of Christ) Sunday. Let’s look at a couple of parallels.
Both days are a celebration involving fathers, offsprings and gifts. And recently we celebrated Pentecost, the feast of the Holy Spirit, Trinity Sunday and now the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, three annual feasts about God’s often hidden but none the less real identity and gifts to us. On Fathers Day we annually express gratitude for that selfless gifting to the One and one who bless us and share their very life-sources with us.
GOD’S PLAN FOR US
“God, . . .in a plan of sheer goodness freely created us to make us share in his own blessed life.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1994) How many times have you wondered if God has a plan for you and, if so, what that plan is? The above italicized sentence is God’s plan for us. The plan is a gift: God gifting us complete and full status in the most “elite club” that exists. We are in it whether we believe it or not.
And how do we know this is true? Because it is stamped into us humans and we see and feel it inside of ourselves for it is like a parent’s gift of his/her fullness of life to a child in conceiving him/her. How awesome is that?
THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST
As only a parent would do when a son or daughter needed help, “God sent his Son as Redeemer and Savior. In his Son and through his Son, the Triune God once again invites us to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1994) That Son, Jesus, gave us a gift of Himself, Body and Blood, in the Eucharist.
If you sometimes doubt that, ask yourself: Does Jesus being God have the power to do this? Would the Jesus you are coming to know do this?
Let us spent some time pondering our Fathers and Jesus’ self gift of the Eucharist; let us remember with gratitude Those who have given us life and allowed us to know love.
Sister Loretta Fernandez RSM
