Friday before Epiphany

The meaning of words is not always obvious.  My father liked to watch prizefights on television. He told me one of the boxers had a “glass jaw.”  I never heard the expression before so I took it literally and said, “If he has a glass jaw why do they let him fight?”  He laughed and replied, “It means he can’t tolerate a hard punch on his chin.”   It’s American slang for someone who can be easily knocked out.  

In today’s first reading St. John writes, “Beloved, we are God’s children now.”  What does that mean?  It seems obvious.  God is our Father because he made us.  But that makes God our Creator and we are his creatures. it doesn’t make us God’s children because children share the same nature as their parents.  God is divine and we are human by creation, not divine.   

To a child of God, is something infinitely greater.  St. John writes, “To all who received him he gave power to become children of God.”  Not to everyone God created, but to those who receive him he gave power to become children of God.  That means we “become partakers of his divine nature.”  Those who are divinized by the Holy Spirit in baptism,  share God’s nature, and will be able to see God and enjoy the powers and happiness of God.  That’s what it means to be children of God.  Whenever I think of it I practically “go bananas” with excitement, with the certain hope that in heaven we will be both human and divine.