Call no one on earth your father....Sorry Dad

Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven.

There is so much in this Sunday's readings that I am almost sad that I am choosing the passage about calling no man father as the subject for today.  Click here to read the passage.  This passage of the Bible is used by anti-Catholics bigots as Biblical proof positive that the Catholic Church goes against Holy Scripture when we call our ministers "Father."  At first sight, you almost have to say that it appears to be black-letter law that Jesus has pronounced here.  So, should we Catholics pack our hymnals and search for a good Bible-thumping fundamentalist church in which to spend our time in on Sunday mornings?  I think not.   Doing so would cheat us out of the intimacy that receiving the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ in the Holy Eucharist and that is something that even the best Bible-thumping preacher cannot provide to us, nor would he or she say that the Eucharist was important as it was just a mere memorial of Jesus, just as one might raise a toast in the local tavern for a patron that has passed away. 

The husband of my mother is my father, he always was, he always will be.  Calling my dad "father" means that this person, to me, is worthy of great respect and is different than all of the other men on earth in that God Himself chose this man to be the one that would participate in creating me and who would raise me and entrust me to the care of God.  So calling my father anything other than father just does not work for me. Did Jesus really mean for me to call my father, "Hey you?"  Of course not. 

If we are to take what Jesus said as black-letter law then we have other problems that our fundamentalist friends fail to see.  We are not to call anyone rabbi either.  Well, they do not see that as a problem.  Very few Church of What's Happening Now have rabbis but they do have teachers.  Teachers are rabbis.  Some of their preachers have gone to school for many years and have achieved great degrees, some as high as doctors of divinity.  Well, they have a problem here too.   Since the title of doctor simply means teacher as well.  And is it legal to call a minister "pastor?"  Using the same reasoning that is used to condemn Catholics the answer is no.  A pastor is a shepherd and in Scripture, Jesus clearly says "I am the good shepherd....there shall be one flock and one shepherd."

What Jesus was doing was telling us not to aspire to titles of honor.  In his time the Pharisees were known for assuming titles that they did not deserve. One hundred and forty-four times in the New Testament the word father is applied to someone who is not Jesus or God.  It is most often applied by one of the apostles to themselves when they call someone their spiritual child. Were the apostles wrong in doing this?  Was error written into the Holy Scripture deliberately by the Holy Spirit?  I think not. 

Catholics, it is okay to call your priest father.  He is to be your spiritual father and your pastor, leading you towards Jesus and helping you perfect yourself little by little.  IT is through the hands of your priest that you are both forgiven for your sins and you receive the Holy Eucharist from those hands.  It is okay, proper, and very Biblical. Don't be bullied by a thumper point out to them the facts and who knows, you might have a seed that one day will sprout and bloom as a Catholic.