Nov 5 Sun
One only is your Father. There is only one Teacher and one Doctor, Christ. The teaching of the Church is that of Christ; the teachers are so, to the extent that they are the image of the Master. And there is only one Father, the heavenly Father (Matthew 23:1-12) from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth derives. God has the fullness of fatherhood, and our fathers participated in it by giving us life; those who in some way have begotten us to the life of faith have also participated in it.
St. Paul writes to the first Christians in Corinth as to the dearest children... for I have begotten you in Christ Jesus through the Gospel. Therefore, I beseech you, be imitators of me. And those Christians knew that, in emulating St. Paul, they became imitators of Christ. In the Apostle they saw reflected the spirit of the Master and the loving care of God for them. When we honor our parents, who gave us life, and those who begot us in the faith, we give much glory to God, for in them is reflected the divine fatherhood.
We Christians share in this spiritual paternity with those whom we have helped to find Christ in their lives. The greater the dedication to this task, the fuller our paternity is. This spiritual paternity is part of the reward that God gives in this life to those who follow him, by divine vocation, in full dedication.
By our example but also by our word, we need to be daring and enter into people's lives. “In preaching the Gospel, the first Twelve had wonderful conversations with those they met and sought out on their journeys and pilgrimages. There would be no Church now if the Apostles had not carried out a supernatural dialogue with all those people. For the Christian apostolate comes down to this: faith comes from hearing, and hearing depends upon the preaching of Christ's word."
“Everyone, great and small, powerful and weak, learned and simple: each in their place should have the humility and magnanimity to be God's instrument in announcing his kingdom. For our Lord sent out all his disciples to announce: The kingdom of heaven is at hand."
The Blessed Virgin Mary exercises her motherhood over Christians and over all men. From her we learn to love those whom we try to bring close to her Son, and those whom, somehow, we have begotten in faith. "If we identify ourselves with Mary, if we imitate her virtues, we will be able to bring Christ to birth, by grace, in the souls of many, who will identify themselves with Him through the action of the Holy Spirit. If we imitate Mary, we will in some way participate in her spiritual motherhood." (St. Josemaría).
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