"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!" (v. 1). Children of God — a familiar phrase. Have you ever thought much about it? I confess I have not; I just took it more or less for granted.

Actually, I think I probably took it a bit too much for granted. John says the world does not know us. I wonder whether we know us. Perhaps we would do well to dig out the family album and look at the pictures we find there.

Here is one. It is of an ornately dressed gentleman, bespectacled, smiling broadly, with a red skullcap perched on the back of his head. His name is John Cardinal O'Conner, the spiritual leader of more than two million Roman Catholics in the New York Archdiocese, until his death several years ago at eight…