I remembered recently a conversation that I had with my father when I was very young. I must have been four or five, because I am fairly sure this was before I started going to school. My father had taught me to pray to Father God (it does not sound as awkward in Albanian), and I had gone along with it for a bit, but as we were praying in church, a thought struck me and, lucky for me, the best theologian I knew was right next to me. “Dad, I call God ‘Father,’ but you are my father.” I do not know to this day why he did not just tell me to be quiet, but he did not. “Yes,” he said, “I am your father, but God is your Father in heaven. He is my Father, too.” This was intriguing. “And grandpa?” “God is his Father, too.” I was not really sure that I understood, but at this point another question had arisen. “But what about the priest, I call him ‘father,’ too.” “He is our father, too, because he teaches us to do what Father God wants us to do.”
All this did not make sense to me. I knew that dad was right, of course, because dad was always right, so I figured I’d have to think about it more. The years went by and until recently I had forgotten about this conversation. But I did not forget the inquiry it sparked in my mind. Over the years, I discovered St. Paul saying that it was from God the Father that all fatherhood “in heaven and on earth derives its name” (Eph. 3:15), and I understood that I had gotten things upside down. My father was a living icon of the Father, and the same was true for the priest. It would take far too long here for me to speak at length about what I had stumbled into that day at church, but for the time being, I want to draw on just two implications.
First, beware of the questions of little children. My father could have just told me to be quiet that day, but whether he noticed that I was asking a question that genuinely bothered me or he was inspired by his Father and mine, he took my questions seriously. That day I received an invitation to dive deeper into the mystery of God. If you are ever in the same situation, please take care not to stifle the curiosity of the little ones. Metropolitan Kallistos Ware often tells of a sermon he heard when he was ten years-old, about a French peasant who would spend a lot of time praying in church. “You must have a lot to pray for,” the other peasants tell him. “I don’t have much to pray for,” the peasant responds, “I just look at Him, and He looks back at me.” The Metropolitan credits this sermon for teaching him how to pray. You may not know when your next opportunity to teach someone something deep about the faith is, so don’t squander it.
Second, I want to highlight something about these living icons. St. Paul, on multiple occasions, draws on the relationship between Christ and the Church in talking about the relationship between the husband and wife. In the order of logic, therefore, Christ and the Church are first, and the husband and wife are their symbols and types. In the order of discovery, however, it is a good marriage which reveals the proper relationship between Christ and the Church. That highlights the awesome responsibility which is placed on the bride and the groom. Of course, this living icon can get twisted and disfigured in many ways, and its role as icon highlights just how great a sin it is to disfigure it. By the same token, parents are living icons of God to their children. If all fatherhood is named after God the Father, then the good father is properly reflecting God the Father in his goodness. A bad father, on the other hand, is not just sinning against their child in his failings but also in his disfiguring of God’s own icon. The same is true about the good and bad priest. In a time when everyone seems to be struggling with recognizing symbolism, let us always keep in mind the ways in which we reflect God in our daily lives and take care to do so properly.
Gjergji Evangjeli served as the Editor-In-Chief of The Torch. He had previously served as the Executive Editor and the World News section editor. He is currently pursuing a ThM at the BC School of Theology and Ministry. Gjergji is interested in the patristic period, specifically in the apologists of the second century. He is an ardent defender of the Oxford comma.
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