Still unfolding

When I started this blog, it wasn't to have you witness what might well be a lifetime conversion.  After reading that passage from Fr. Richards book "Be a Man", I am still dwelling on that simple phrase "Father I am your son!"  I have been feeling a bit like the prodigal son a bit, but I would suppose that looking at what was missing and the effect it had can be daunting and haunting.  I have noticed one immediate change.  I don't mind praying.  Troubling to hear a priest say that praying was hard, I would suppose.  It was.  It was a chore.  If prayer is communication with God and God was something distant and at best something I theorhetically should have a relationship with, praying was like shooting words into the ether hoping they landed somewhere.  Thankfully, for some reason, this was not my experience in Mass.  But it showed in other ways: my reticence to pray the Liturgy of the Hours (especially on my day off), my woeful underuse of the Adoration Chapel my wonderful parish has, my indifference to the rosary, and just how I would generally bounce from one event to the next event without lifting most of those events to God.  I know it might be somewhat disturbing for my friends and parishioners to read these things, but I also know I am not the only one who is called to this change of heart.

Upon reflection this morning in the chapel before the Blessed Sacrament, it occurred to me that if A) I am a son of the Father, B) Jesus Christ is THE Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, then C) I am a brother of Christ, and D) since all the baptized can make that claim, every baptized person is in full reality my brother and sister.  As if unpacking being a son of the Father wasn't enough, this has flooded in more.  I am still sorting this one out, but I know it is going to have ramifications on the kind of friend, sibling, son, pastor, and brother priest I am call to be.

IN my prayer this morning it also occurred to me that once my eyes have been opened to these facts, there is no going back.  I am not saying I was a bad person before.  But there are so many places where I can stand to allow the grace of God to strengthen me and make me better.  Furthermore, I don't want to go back.  Realizing that I am a son of the Father is changing so much within me; especially things I have struggled with for years.  I am truly interested in seeing what is next.  I invite my readers to find these things for themselves.  If I am a son of the Father, so then are you a son or daughter of the Father.  That makes us brothers or brother and sister.  This changes everything.