Abraham & His Son

It was a pretty moving weekend for me as a dad. Yesterday, we were honored to be guests at our cousin Joseph Cleeton's wedding at St. George Church in New Baden. It was a fitting way, I believe, to wrap up the National Week of Vocations. Today, our youngest son was Baptized and became a new creation in Christ - beginning his road toward his own eventual vocation.

At St. George yesterday, everything about the wedding was beautiful. In particular, I loved the readings (they picked Tobit 8:4b-8 as the First Reading. This was Suzanne's and my First Reading as well. I'm going to do another entry on this after the next Koinonia weekend, as I don't want to spoil parts of it that will be in my talk for anyone who's attending.)

But a particularly touching moment for me was when I looked up again at the stained glass windows flanking the altar after Communion. Both windows prefigure Christ: One is the ancient priest Melchisidech offering the bread and wine, and the other is Abraham about to follow God's command and slaughter his own son (from Genesis 22).

Luckily, I found a picture of this exact window online - at the Rome of the West entry with photos of the church, and can share it here:

What struck me about this depiction of Abraham, his son, and the angel telling him to stop (just in the nick of time) is that I never imagined Isaac being this old in the story.

How many times have we heard this story told at Mass - or read it on our own... and yet I always imagined Abraham carrying an infant or toddler Isaac up the height to offer him as a sacrifice.

I really stopped to ponder Abraham taking Isaac up the height as an older boy - perhaps as a teenager - up the mount to slaughter him. It added a new depth to the story for me - to consider that it wasn't just Abraham who knew what was happening, but perhaps God also used the whole event to make an impression upon Isaac as well.

Knowing that my youngest son was being Baptized today made me recall the prayer for the father in the Baptismal Rite:

God is the giver of all life, human and divine. May God bless [_], the father of this child. He and his wife will be the first teachers of their [daughter/ son] in the ways of  faith. May they be also the best of teachers, bearing witness to the faith by what they say and do, in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Abraham not only acknowledged God's role as the true head of his own household and the giver and taker of life, but bore complete and unfettered witness to the faith, even to the point of nearly sacrificing his own son.

And maybe his son wasn't an infant at the time. Maybe his son was old enough to see and understand what was happening, and learned something himself through the ordeal.

How important it is for us to be "the best of teachers."

So I was beaming with pride at bath time tonight when I asked my oldest if he knew the most important thing that happened today.

"That's easy," he said. "Joseph was Baptized."

"And what does that mean?", I asked.

"He became one of Jesus' friends and part of God's family."

At least I can already see and hear evidence that we're teaching the faith well - in words and deeds - via Thomas' knowledge and understanding. I'm thankful for the graces we're constantly afforded as we strive on this path of trying to be "the best of teachers" and "bearing witness to the faith by what [we] say and do."

Gaudete! She said “yes!”

Today is a special Sunday in the Church - the Third Sunday of Advent is known as "Gaudete" Sunday, from the first word of the Entrance Antiphon in its native Latin, "Gaudete", which means "Rejoice!"