Hello,
Thank you Jesus for the cold weather. It looks like this coming week will be a little warmer, like 40’s. Thank you for your participation this week. The bazaar was another smashing success. Thank you for supporting out school and our community. I got to see some great Halloween costumes when I visited the classrooms on Tuesday. Also Tuesday evening, we did Trunk-or-treat in Brownsville. Somehow I needed up with the job of staying indoors and helping the trick-or-treaters as they went around to the six tables we had set up with candy inside. Then at Mass this past Wednesday, some of the students dressed up as saints. So cool. It is a blessing to be a part of these communities.
This weekend Jesus tells us not to call people rabbi (“teacher”), or father, or master. Some Protestants use this to denounce the Catholic practice of calling priests “father.” Well, do they have Sunday School educators? Do they call their own male parent something else? No. They call them teachers and fathers. So Jesus is speaking hyperbolically. Yes, we should call people teacher or father. (I am your spiritual father.) However, all fatherhood, all teaching, is rooted in the Christ. God the Father is source of all other fatherhood. Jesus is the source of teaching. Priests and teachers must look to Christ as the source of their servant leadership.
However, we are all called to lead and to teach in some ways. Maybe you have a friend who does not know the Catholic faith very well. Maybe you are called to be his or her teacher. Maybe there is a young person who needs a parental influence in their lives. Maybe you are called to be that person for them. Are we willing to be humble for the sake of others? “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”
Peace of Christ,
Father Vogel
Father Andrew Vogel's Blog 