Petersboat

If the Word of God is spoken most powerfully from mother to child over the Baptismal Font, or through the priest over the bread and wine, then the Church speaks the tiny whispering sound that Elijah heard in the desert - the still, small voice of God.

When the Muppets come to understand that they are puppets, something amazing is happening, as mysterious as when a man or woman begins to perceive the meaning of our common humanity.

Sometimes my father would say to me, “Don’t move. I’ll be right there,” and he’d directly intervene to save me from some situation. But other times, he would say to me, “Figure it out on your own.”

For instance, when I broke my arm in the 6th grade he rushed me to the hospital, acting powerfully and swiftly on my behalf. But not long after that, when I told him that I was being bullied on the bus, he said, “Well, if it happens again, hit the guy in the nose.”

I guess being a father isn’t one or the other. As much as it is sometimes stepping in to save the child, it also means permitting the child the freedom to try and to learn on his own. “I’ll always be here,” a father can say, “but I can’t live your life for you.”

I mentioned Game 4 of the NBA Finals, when, after the Knicks had gone up by one point (after being down by 29) the Spurs inbounded the ball with 1.9 seconds left on the clock. The prayer at that point was, “Just don’t foul them.”

And I feel like there’s something similar happening in our Christianity: Christ has won the victory for us, conquering the Evil One on the cross, and His parting prayer for us is, “Just don’t foul one another; Love one another as I have loved you.”

Many people today are reaching out for God in a proud and ambitious way, like Icarus, and end up only hurting themselves, as we once did before beginning to love Jesus in the Eucharist. This weekend's Feast of Corpus Christi raises the question: Can man really know God? Can man really approach the Son without getting hurt? I say he can. Good News, Icarus.