The second reading for All Saints Day hands us one of the central truths of our faith, and it’s pretty amazing.
Saint John writes in his first letter,
“Beloved, see what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. And so we are.”
This statement alone is worth the price of admission. God the Father has allowed us, as sinful, shallow, and rebellious creations, to become his very children. Not just servants. Not beggars at the feast, but actual FAMILY MEMBERS OF GOD.
John even hammers this point home in case we missed it: “and so we are!”
The dignity God offers us is beyond anything we could ever possibly earn or grasp. Only in heaven are we going to wake up to what Jesus has offered us in our baptism. Even as John tells us of this gift, we probably have no clue to the glory and joy this is going to bring us both now and in heaven.
We are not just called children of God. We actually have become children of God!
How? Through the divine adoption that the Church pours out into our souls in baptism.
“I am a child of God.” Repeat that fact every day. Out loud. Write it on your bathroom mirror and revel in that knowledge. Sing it from the rooftops. It is the number one thing Satan and the world try to get us to forget. Yet, when it really sinks in, when we are able to allow this fantastic truth to pierce our hearts, we begin to experience real peace and real joy.
This one fact changes everything. But like much of what God shares, it takes time and prayer to let the full import of this marvelous truth sink in. Please, don’t ever forget it.
It is hard to imagine what it must have been like to live in a time where at any minute you could die for holding the belief that Jesus was the Savior and that all the gods of the pagans were just dead statues.
Back then, being caught as a Christian might have meant serious trouble in terms of negativity and social ostracization. People in Paul’s time were worried that this new teaching for Christ and against the pagan cults might upset the gods, cause a loss of their revenue, or bring punitive measures down from the Romans. For example, in Ephesus, the metalworkers were seriously upset at Paul and his companions because they preached against the gods, whose statues they made for tourists. They tried to have Paul killed. It was intense!
So, as we read Paul’s words to the young Church in Thessalonica, we see the importance of what Paul is saying.
“And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, receiving the word in great affliction, with joy from the Holy Spirit, so that you became a model for all the believers…”
Being Catholic has a cost; many of us know it already. We might not get our kids into this or that daycare or school. People at work look at us funny. We might have to give up a golf game on Sunday because God comes first. On business trips, we may have to skip some forms of entertainment our coworkers want to indulge in. The list goes on and on. Living in imitation of Christ is tough. But in dying to this world, we live in imitation of Christ, as Paul points out. We become the heroes our kids need and examples to our friends when we joyfully trust in God and turn away from what this world prioritizes.