January 3, 2012

A Child of God

What does it mean to be a child of God?  How would you answer that question?  Think about it for a moment.  Can you provide two or three replies?  St. John, in the first reading for today's liturgy, suggests an answer:  to be a true child of God means to be ready "to break" away from sin.  Simple but monumentally challenging at times.  St. John always speaks to us with the reminder that there is no doubt to the fact that you, yes you, are truly a person God created and that you are the special object of his love.

If I think of myself as a child of God, I can only "ponder" (like Mary) about what my experience will be when the moment comes for my meeting face-to-face with the Son of God.  What must Mary have thought as she looked upon her newborn child?  Theologians and our Church have endeavored to teach us that at the moment of our meeting God "we shall be like him because we shall see him as he really is."  We will be transformed and united with him.

Beyond this gift, God also has gifted our lives with the true sign of his unending and always forgiving love:  the gift of his Son, Jesus Christ.  This is what makes us the true children of God.

So again as we consider our journey for 2012, we should reflect or ponder how we many remain true followers walking the path God wants us to follow.  This is the call to follow Jesus' way as the first apostles did.  And it is a summons answered by a personal effort to remain ever close to Jesus.