“Priesthood: Revealing the Heart of the Father” - 11th Sun OT- A (Father’s Day) - 6.18.23

“Priesthood: Revealing the Heart of the Father”

By: Fr. David Schmidt

Assumption Church (Regina Coeli Parish) - Bellevue, PA

Mass Readings - https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061823.cfm

I want to wish a happy Father’s day to all of our dads out there. And to give thanks for all that they do for us. Their love. Their sacrifice. Everything that they do for us. We thank all of our dads here today.

We know the importance of fatherhood as we grow up with our dads, but we see this as well with the epidemic of fatherhood that we see in our culture today. There are so many fathers who aren’t around or are just bad earthly fathers in different ways.

The effects that these earthly fathers can have on us if they are not the best example is that they can cause deep wounds within out hearts that can take a long time to heal. Or it effects our ability, most importantly, to see God as our Father.

Our earthly fathers play such a key role in how we see God as our Father.

If you’ve had a poor earthly father, know that God the Father mourns with you and desires to help heal these wounds in your heart that have developed from a poor earthly father. And He wants to show you that you have a heavenly Father who loves you perfectly.

Earthly fatherhood is one of the ways in which God the Father reveals His love to the world.

However, today I want to talk specifically about spiritual fatherhood and how the priesthood reveals the heart of the Father.

Christ came to reveal the Father’s love. This was His mission - to reveal the Father’s heart. We see in the priest the ability to reveal God the Father’s love in a uniquely powerful way.

St. John Vianney has this great quote where he says, “The priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus.”

If we want to know the heart of the Father, we must know the heart of Christ because Christ reveals the Father. To know the heart of Christ, it is important to know the heart of the priest.

We see this love of God the Father being expressed in Christ and His priests in the Gospel passage today.

Jesus sees the crowds and His heart is moved with pity for them because “they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.” He tells His disciples that ““The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few;” so He tells them to ask the Master of the harvest, which is God the Father, to send out laborers for his harvest.

So what does Jesus do next? He calls the first 12 Apostles and gives “them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness.” He tells them to go out find the lost sheep of Israel and bring them back.

This is one of my favorite passages. This passage of Jesus looking out at the people and feeling such great pity for them. And I think it describes the heart of the priest in such a powerful way because the priest will look out at the people, he will look out at this world and have his heart moved with pity for them for they are like sheep without a shepherd. They are troubled and abandoned, and they need the Father’s love.

There is a desire in the priest’s heart, that reflects the heart of the Father, to go out and be a shepherd, to be a father to the people, and lead them to heaven, and into the arms of our heavenly Father.

This is why Jesus’ response to His heart feeling pity was to call His first 12 Apostles. Because it was going to be through them, that they would be an extension of Christ’s mission to reveal the Father’s love to the world and lead His children back to the arms of their Heavenly Father.

Through the priesthood, we see God’s desire for our salvation. We see the love of the Father that will do everything possible to lead His children to eternal life. He will go out into enemy territory and find His lost children, the lost sheep of Israel, and bring them back home safely.

We see this in how Christ laid down His for us on the Cross. The ultimate sacrifice. The ultimate act of love. The Cross of Christ is the greatest rescue mission that we have ever seen. He threw Himself onto to the Cross, to free us from slavery and the clutches of the devil, so that we may be saved, and enter into eternal life with God forever. In Christ, through the priest, we are to see how God the Father never stops pursuing us. How He never stops trying to win our heart.

Unfortunately, as there are bad earthly fathers, there are also bad spiritual fathers. And one of the many tragedies of many different things in the Church such as the Church’s sex abuse crisis is the distrust that it has caused towards priests and bishops and a rejection of their fatherhood as an effect of it.

Maybe you’ve had a bad experience or two with a priest or bishop in whatever circumstance, whether it was a conversation, an encounter in confession, whatever it might be. And it has damaged your ability to see the priest as father, more specifically, how his spiritual fatherhood is a reflection of the Fatherhood of God.

When the priest is faithful to his vocation, and his calling as a spiritual father, we see get a glimpse of how God the Father loves us. We see this with the priest’s gentleness and mercy in the Sacrament of Confession. His eagerness to bring the Father’s mercy to his children. And the joy to free them from their sins. And the joy also, of welcoming back someone who has been away for many years, like the father welcomed back the prodigal son as we see in Luke 15.

The priest is to imitate the sacrificial love of Christ, by sharing in His Passion, and laying down His life for his children.

The priest is to reveal the authority of the Father. And the goodness of this authority. When Christ called His Apostles He gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness.”

The authority of a father protects his children from the enemy. The authority of the father is meant to bring healing to his children’s pains. The authority of the father is meant to lovingly guide them and lead them to live rightly, so they stay on the path to eternal salvation.

The priest is given a unique authority, from God the Father, through Jesus Christ, to drive away the enemy, and to help bring healing the woundedness and pains of the heart of his children.

We also see the authority of the father in his unique role to bestow identity onto their children. Priests, as spiritual fathers, are called to help people become more aware of their identity as sons and daughters of God. This truth in itself, in discovering our identity, as sons and daughters of the Father, brings so much healing to our hearts, especially when we know that we are loved as sons and daughters of a good and loving Father.

We need to pray for priests and bishops around the world that they may be the spiritual father’s that God is calling them too be, so that they can reveal the love of the Father in powerful way to the entire world.

As a priest of Jesus Christ, as your spiritual father, I come today to tell you how much our heavenly Father loves you. That you don’t have to earn His love. That you don’t have to be perfect. He loves you just as you are. He sees your pain, your brokenness, your woundedness, everything that ails your heart, and He desires to bring you healing. He wants you to know that He will not leave you an orphan. How He is always there ready to forgive us, embrace us, and show us His mercy when we sin. He will never abandon you. He sees your heart. And He wants to tell you how beautiful your heart is. How beautiful you are to Him. He wants you to hear these words of truth in the depths of your heart, “This is my beloved son/my beloved daughter in whom I am well pleased.” “I am so proud of you.” He is inviting you today to come to Him and allow Him to lift all those burdens from your heart. To come to Him, and to rest in His arms, so that you may feel His love and protection. May you feel safe in a way you never have before. And may you experience the love of the Father in a new way this day, and for all eternity.