Sunday Reflection: Malachi 1: 14b-2:2b, 8-10

Earthly Father, Heavenly Sacrifice

This series of reflections starts with a passage that is key to the role of an earthly father, as priest of the church at home. The passage, from the first reading this past Sunday, is from The Book of the Prophet Malachi and reads as follows:

A great King am I, says the LORD of hosts,

and my name will be feared among the nations.

And now, O priests, this commandment is for you:

If you do not listen,

if you do not lay it to heart,

to give glory to my name, says the LORD of hosts,

I will send a curse upon you

and of your blessing I will make a curse.

You have turned aside from the way,

and have caused many to falter by your instruction;

you have made void the covenant of Levi,

says the LORD of hosts.

I, therefore, have made you contemptible

and base before all the people,

since you do not keep my ways,

but show partiality in your decisions.

Have we not all the one father?

Has not the one God created us?

Why then do we break faith with one another,

violating the covenant of our fathers?

What do we see here? 

We see a warning to the priests of Israel of what will happen if they turn aside from the duties of the role that God has given them. 

It is clear from the text that the duty of the priest is to lead the people in giving to God what He is due: justice. Or if you prefer the definition, to give to one that which he is due. This is why hear the priest say today in the preface to the Eucharistic prayers, "It is truly right and just to give you thanks and praise."

In the days of the Old Covenant, the priest gave glory to God by the means of sacrifice, usually in the form of animal sacrifice(s). As the Father of all, any sacrifice given to his name is supposed to be of the best quality. If we read earlier in Malachi 1, we gain some context when it is shown the priests were not deliberately not giving God the best of their flock, but rather were offering animals that had defects.

God will not accept any sacrifice that is not our best, for if we are not giving him our best, then our hearts are not properly ordered to his will. Cain in the Old Testament was guilt of this, as his sacrifice was not his best and was refused by the Lord. His brother Abel acted according to that which is just, and offered the best of his flock and found favor with God.

What does this mean for us? 

As people of the New Covenant, animal sacrifice is no longer necessary as Christ has fulfilled the sacrifice required for the forgiveness of sins for all time. 

What then are we to offer to God? We are to offer him our very selves. 

In Matthew 16, Christ tells us, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." By the offering of our selves to God and ordering our lives to His will, we actively participate in the sacrifice of Christ, and it is only then that we will be accepted into the Kingdom of God. 

This is a difficult thing to accept, but it is made possible by the Grace of God.

Fathers, what then is our role in this? 

In Matthew 23, Christ says, "Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven." 

Is this a complete prohibition of calling any one on earth father? By no means. Instead, this is for all fathers a call to humility and to a proper understanding of their role. 

As the priest shepherds his parish community in giving to God what he is due, so must a father shepherd his family. As fathers we need to understand that all glory, honor, and praise is due to our Father in heaven first, and that we must be an example for what that means to our family without demanding any for ourselves. 

We can only be called fathers in so much as we understand that we do not take the place of God but rather reflect the person of God by fulfilling the role that he as given us. 

Over the next week I want us as fathers to ask ourselves this question, how can we better emulate our Father in heaven so as to fulfill our role as fathers here on earth?