Nice guys and Jesus

Was Jesus "nice"? Proponents would say he had compassion on people: fed them by multiplying loaves and fish, healed sick, raised the dead to life and we cannot but agree He did all these. But was he just a nice guy? Consider the cleansing of the temple. Christ was filled with zeal for God's house and made a whip of cords to drive out the money changers, saying - my house would be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers. What does this tell us about Jesus? Was this an aberration in his character?

Certainly not! Jesus did this out of love. How so? Because love is beyond kindness! Being just a nice person on some occasions doesn't work. Jesus stood for something and was willing to be disagreeable. In fact the Word of God tells us His action was immediately taken offense at by the temple priests, who plotted to kill him. My personal thoughts on this action of Christ was for the sake of the innocents who Jesus wanted to be able to come to the Lord and meet with God in the temple.

For me, this applies both to place of worship and the home. Christ has a burning love for innocents as he said “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” How zealous are we about the sanctity of our churches? What example do we set for our little ones, of reverence for the Real Presence? We are called to battle not flesh and blood, but the forces of evil, starting with ourselves. When we bow and genuflect, when we receive Christ in Communion with the respect due to the king of kings and Lord of lords, we join in Christ's battle, directing our zeal for His kingdom at the mastery of our own flesh and bodies. In doing so not only do we worship God and sanctify ourselves, but also witness to children and people around. We help in the work of salvation and sanctification.

How about the other church - the home - the domestic church? How zealous are we, to nurture our little ones, our children in the virtues? Today we have many bright and brilliant minds, but spiritual dwarfs. The world has tried and failed, focusing just on knowledge and skills. How passionate are we to educate our kids to build not only their IQ but EQ (Emotional Quotient) and SQ (Spiritual Quotient)? Do we take ownership and responsibility for their formation in virtue and Christian living? On the home front, as a father of four, I see the promise I made to raise children in the faith is incredibly important and cannot be understated, especially in today's culture. Why do we have so many delinquents, suicidal, depressed young people unable to get out of the vicious cycle when facing the hurdles of life? Because we as a society listened to the lies of the modern dream of success - a false promise of fathers who work hard and provide for their children, but at the cost of the paternal guidance every human being has the right to receive.

We have allowed generations of children grow into men and women who can't handle failure. Because we scoffed at fathers when they corrected their children. We accused fathers of harshness and lack of love, when they wanted to raise them to be able to stand on their own. We have failed to see the weeping hearts of fathers because we couldn't see their faces wet with tears. What will we answer to our Lord when we meet him about how our society taught children to think one parent loves them while the other doesn't. How many more lives must be ruined before we realise that every child has a right to both their mothers and fathers love?

Finally, as a Catholic prayer warrior, I would fail in my duty if I didn't talk about the darker side of the undermining of fathers in our society. We owe our very being and existence to our Creator God, our heavenly Father. The proper name of God is Father, and this is not physical, because God is eternal - beyond space-time. The Catechism teaches:

By calling God “Father”, the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority; and that he is at the same time goodness and loving care for all his children. - CCC 239

God did not merely choose to reveal Himself as Father. Rather, He is Father by nature, in two respects: through the eternal generation of the Son in the Holy Trinity, and in His act of creating, especially the creation of those creatures that are “in his image” (see Gen. 1:26). Therefore, human fatherhood is best viewed as a partaking in the Divine Fatherhood of God, one that, by God’s design, is most apt for understanding Divine Fatherhood.

The use of the term “Father,” therefore, is not to be viewed as a concession to the patriarchal culture of the time, but as revealing the very nature of God.

In undermining fathers, our society is allowing the Evil one to sever children from the embrace of our heavenly Father. It's high time we opened our eyes to the downward spiral our children will be headed, unless we act with all urgency and focus on raising children holy and pleasing to God. As in the movie series, Rocky Balboa tells his son to stop whining and stop giving excuses, but bounce back from the hits of life he receives. Let us apply this lesson spiritually and give our children true love, both the nurturing love of a mother and the strong, firm, yet equally essential love of a father, so that they may be able to stand up and live lives worth living, and fulfil the purpose for which they were born.