EDITOR’S LETTER

Abba, Father

by John O’Connell

God is Father; He has revealed Himself as Father. Jesus addressed the First Person of the Most Blessed Trinity as Father.

Though the Church attributes creation and the workings of Providence to God the Father, all three Persons of the Blessed Trinity are (external to the inner life of the Trinity) in relation to us, Father. St. Augustine teaches that when Christians say Our Father—they are addressing all three Persons in the Trinity.

The kindest, the noblest, the best of human fathers is only the palest reflection of the Fatherhood of God. God is Father, not only because He created us and continues to sustain us, but also because by the salvific Sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the grace won by Him we are raised to partake in the very life of God as His adopted children. God provides for His children, bestowing upon us both spiritual and temporal blessings.

God is a loving Father, not a weak, indulgent parent. Pope John Paul II, in one of his weekly talks (April 1999), makes the point that we give glory to the Father when we obey His will.

A qualitative leap occurs with Jesus: He sums up the law and the prophets in a single norm, as simple in its formulation as difficult in its practice: “Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them” (Matt. 7:12). This is presented as the way to be perfect as our heavenly Father (Matt. 5:48). Whoever acts in this way bears witness before men so that they may give glory to the heavenly Father (cf. Matt. 5:16), and is ready to receive the Kingdom He has prepared for the just, in accordance with Christ’s words at the Last Judgement: “Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25-34).

While He [Christ] proclaims the Father’s love, Jesus never fails to recall that it is a demanding love... His “food” is precisely to do the will of the One who sent Him (cf. John 4:34).

Go to Mary, the fairest daughter of the Father, and beseech her to intercede for us that we will always be faithful to the adorable will of God.