Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. So Paul, standing in the middle of the Areopagus, said:”Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. And he made from one every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him. Yet he is not far from each one of us, for “In him we live and move and have our being;” as even some of your poets have said, “For we are indeed his offspring” (Acts 17: 21-23, 26-28).
These wonderful words from the Acts of the Apostles serve to remind us of the following:
- We have been baptized and chrismated to come to know the “unknown God” who has been revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ our Lord.
- Yet there are times in our lives during which we may feel that God is not there and invisible and unknown to us.
- That one of the major tasks of parents in the family as an icon of the little church is to make the invisible and unknown God visible to their children. What an awesome responsibility this is.
- That our witness to our children is that “He is not far from each one of us.”
- That the Athenians mentioned above hungered for “hearing something new.” May parents also instill in their children the desire to know God in the person of Jesus Christ as a new, eternal, ever-growing reality in their lives.
- Finally, this journey is founded on Jesus Christ laying down His life on the Cross in order to make the invisible God visible to us.
- As parents you can be that same icon of Jesus laying down His life for His sheep in that you love your children with a love that only He can give.
The blessing of the Lord be upon you.
The unworthy +Paul