Unstoppable Love
By Deacon Rod Knight
My father always told me, “I don’t call you son because you shine, I call you son because you are mine.” As I am typing these words, I am missing the man who raised me. I have missed him since he died and will continue to until I die. People have assumed that my father was saying that I didn’t excel or shine. People believed that it was a dominance or ownership thing. Neither was the case. My father was hard on me, but he always ensured I knew what he meant.
Flash forward to December 14, 2025 Gaudete Sunday where I had the privilege of serving Mass with Father Isaiah. This beautiful Bambinelli Sunday with all the baby Jesus’s awaiting a blessing symbolizing the welcoming of Jesus into our homes for Christmas when Father Isaiah in his homily, right there in front of all the baby Jesus’s, said that all Nativity Scenes were missing something. That something was poop, animal feces. He then began to describe how nasty the conditions for the baby Jesus would have been.
Jesus King of the universe arrives as man incarnate in some of the nastiest conditions humanity can offer. It would have been a dank, filthy, dingy delivery room as opposed to the palaces where royalty usually enter the world. By now you are thinking the deacon is really dipping into the eggnog. What is the point of these two moments in time?
Back to my father, his comment was that he chose me. I was his son. If I succeeded or if I failed, I was still his son. I don’t think I ever heard my father say I love you, in those words. My father would celebrate every high point I had as if it were his own and encourage me to get up at every fall I took. I was incapable of stopping my father from loving me. It is the same with our Heavenly Father.
We can reject God, be disobedient and even deny His existence but we are still His creation. God the Father sent His only begotten Son into the muck and mire to bring humanity back into communion with Him. Through the sacrament of Baptism, we become His adopted children, and we are incapable of stopping Him from loving us. All of Heaven rejoices over one sinner who repents.
It was cold hard marble as I lay face down, the highlight reel of disobedience to my Heavenly Father was playing in slow painful motion reminding me that I am not worthy of the ordination I am about to receive. Satan’s last attempt to stop me from answering the call of my Father. Laying there as the Litany of Saints were being prayed over us, I realized that we are incapable of stopping our Fathers love. We can refuse it but can’t stop it. No matter how much muck is in our hearts, we can go to the confessional and Jesus will go back to the beginning, pull out the muck rake and clean out all the nastiness. If you are really quiet as you leave the confessional you may hear all of Heaven rejoicing. I may have chocolate covered raisins scattered in our Nativity scenes as a new tradition. Thanks Father Isaiah.