Our Father, who is in heaven, revealed Himself
as the source of all true fatherhood to St. Paul who exclaimed:
I bow my knees to the Eternal Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ,
of whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named (Eph
3:14-15, DRV). Whoever is honored and dignified with the name
father has derived the name from the Eternal Father who is the
Father of all angelic spirits in heaven and of all men and women
on earth. Our Father who is in heaven, desires to infuse all
those who bear the name father with His own infinite goodness,
truth and wisdom in order that all fathers here on earth, be
like Him.
The natural order is an image of the supranatural
order. In the natural order parents are the architects of their
child’s brain and personality. The tiny boy child adores
his father and becomes the image of his father through living
with his father. He becomes like his father not just by imitation
of his father; he becomes like his father not just by watching
his father’s gestures, emotions and reactions; he becomes
like his father primarily through the daily reciprocal interactions
with his father: the communion of persons, father with son.
The good father communes with his son by listening attentively
and not intrusively; by protecting the son but not overprotecting;
the father inspires the son but not to goals beyond the child’s
capacities; the father enforces rules and standards firmly but
with kindness; The father corrects but does not humiliate; the
father encourages without criticizing; the father enjoys his
son and radiates pride without wearing his son’s achievements
as a badge of honor. This good father has redeemed his fatherhood
through Christ Jesus and through his relationship with the Eternal
Father, and has become a father in likeness to the Eternal Father.
We become like the person whom we idealize and
know in a close mutually reciprocal relationship. Is it possible
to know the Person of the Eternal Father? To answer this question
let us first ask: How do we know any person? How do I know you?
I can know your name, that you are a student, that you are also
a musician, that you are friendly and have a reputation for
hard work but do I really know you? The words provide knowledge
about you but I will only know you if you choose to honestly
reveal yourself to me. It is only in the experience of a revelatory
relationship of reciprocal interactions occurring over time
that we know each other as persons. Revelation of the person
comes through participation in each other’s revealed interior
life.
How do we know the Person of the Eternal Father?
We know about Him through Tradition and Sacred Scripture. We
will know and adore Him as a Person only when He reveals Himself
to us and invites us to participate in His interior life and
we respond by inviting Him to participate in ours. The Eternal
Father desires to reveal Himself to us in order that we may
know Him and not only know him, but to boast that we know Him:
Rich man, do not boast of your riches; wise man, do not
boast of your wisdom; strong man, do not boast of your strength;
but you who know me, BOAST that you know Me and understand Me,
that I am loving and kind, just and good (Jer 9:23-24).
In the great theophanies of the Old Testament
the Lord revealed Himself to the prophets and patriarchs. Job
after loosing everything, his wife, children, property, health
and friends, prayed with perseverance to the Lord. The Eternal
Father listened to Job’s questions and complaints and
responded to him with an intimate revelatory encounter. As Job
experienced the unfathomable holiness of the Father’s
interior life, his heart was overcome with awe for the Lord’s
greatness and his own unworthiness. A transformation occurred
within him and he cried out: I have heard of you Lord through
word of mouth, but now my eye has seen you. Therefore I disown
what I have said and repent in dust and ashes (Jb 42:5-6).
To Abraham and his wife Sarah, the Lord revealed
Himself as three men who prophetically announced the birth of
a son Isaac and the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Abraham accepted with grace the announcement of the gift of
a son but of the destruction of the cities, he reasoned and
bargained with the Lord (Gn 18: 1-18). The prophet Daniel, who
lived 550 years before the birth of Jesus, was anguished and
terrified when he saw the Eternal Father in a Trinitarian vision:
I beheld til thrones were placed and the Ancient of Days
sat. His garment was as white as snow and the hair on his head
like clean wool; His throne like flames of fire; the wheels
of it like burning fire. A swift stream of fire issued forth
from before Him. Thousands upon thousands were ministering to
him and ten thousand times a hundred thousand stood before Him.
Then one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven
to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him (Dn
7:9-13, DRV).
The fullness of revelation of the Lord as a relationship
of three persons came only through the Incarnation of Jesus
as he revealed Himself first to His Apostles and disciples then
to the fathers of the church. Through their teachings and Sacred
Scripture, we learn of the one Lord in three persons. We experience
and know Him in our heart and adore Him as three Persons when
the Lord reveals Himself to us in the reciprocal intimate communion
of persons. St. John of Damascus wrote: I worship one God, one
Godhead, but I adore three persons: God the Father, God the
Son made flesh, and God the Holy Spirit (St.John of Damascus,
On Divine Images, translation by St. Vladimir’s
Seminary Press, Crestwood, N.Y., 1980, p.14).
The Eternal Father is Father from the beginning
and He is without beginning. The Father is always a father in
His very Being since from the beginning He generates the Word.
The Lord said to me, you are my son; this day I have begotten
you (Ps 2:7). This day is eternity. Before all time the
Son is generated, consubstantial with the Father, and united
with Him in the Holy Spirit. In the beginning was the Word
and the Word was with God and the Word was God (Jn 1:1).
No one can perfectly comprehend the infinite glory and majesty
of the Father’s Being because the Father dwells in
inapproachable light whom no man has seen or can see (1
Tm 6:16). No one knows the Father except the Son and He
to whom it shall please the Son to reveal him (Mt 11:27).
Jesus chose to reveal His Father to St. Steven on the occasion
of Steven’s martyrdom. St. Steven was filled with the
Holy Spirit and looking up intently to heaven saw the glory
of God the Father and Jesus standing at His right hand
(Acts 7:55).
Jesus is the image of the invisible Father
(Col 1:15). Jesus said: I am in the Father and the Father is
in me (Jn 14:11); If you have seen me, your have seen my
Father (Jn 14:9). The Son is the Mediator Dei - the mediator
between man and the Eternal Father. The Son is the High Priest
whose sacrifice opens the door for man to enter into a relationship
with the Eternal Father; to know Him, to adore Him and to boldly
approach His throne of grace to receive the immeasurable
riches of His kindness (Eph 2:7).
The Apostles witnessed Jesus’ relationship
with His Father and every day they saw an intimate communion
of respect, attentiveness, trust, dependence and affection between
Father and Son. They observed the Son give glory to the Father:
The words that I speak I do not speak on my own. The Father
who dwells in me is doing His works (Jn 14:12). The Apostles
heard the Father enjoying and affirming His Son at the Baptism
of Jesus and at the Transfiguration on Mt Tabor: This is
my beloved Son in whom I am pleased. Listen to him (Mt
17:5; Mk 1:11).
Only on the night of the betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane
was the true depth of the Father, Son relationship revealed
in its fullness of tenderness and intimacy. The apostles heard
Jesus cry out in Aramaic to his Father, Abba, and in that one
word the depth of the filial intimacy was revealed. Abba is
an expression of tenderness and affection; Abba conveys humility
and submissiveness; it conveys a trust in the father to be strong,
all-powerful and close-by; it conveys a trust that the father
will do always what is absolutely right and good for the son.
Abba is best translated from Aramaic into English as daddy.
The Son, our Lord, calls his own father, daddy. Has any man
ever called his God daddy! In Biblical history did any man call
his own father daddy! This is unprecedented in Biblical history
or even in the history of any religion. Jesus is a man of thirty-three
years. His father is God!
How many of us have experienced the level of trust
and tenderness to call our own earthly father daddy? For many
the word daddy is so utterly foreign to their experience of
father that when saying the word, their tongue sticks to the
roof of their mouth and the word comes out garbled.
It is amazing to hear Jesus call His Father daddy
because we are not accustomed to hear strong men call their
Father daddy; we think it isn’t manly. Wouldn’t
we laugh if we heard Donald Rumsfeld call his father daddy;
or think of Rush Limbaugh calling his father daddy. Yet here
is the most masculine of all men ever to walk the earth –
Jesus - the bravest, the boldest, the most courageous, the most
unflappable, the most straightforward, the most outspoken and
fearless of men. Men either recognized him or were jealous of
him. He forcefully and angrily kicked out of the sacred temple
those whom he called hypocrites. To the Pharisees who pretended
to honor God but continued in iniquity, he railed in their faces:
Serpents, brood of vipers, blind fools, you are filled with
evil and death (Mt 23:17,25,27,33). To the men without
guile and to the humble of heart, he said, Follow me! and they
laid aside everything in life and followed him. Jesus, the mightiest
of all warriors, conquered his enemies, the demons with his
words. He healed the sick, raised the dead, and calmed the raging
seas. He was kind and gentle with the poor and the weak and
he was the ultimate defender of woman. This is the essence of
masculinity! This is a great man, the strongest of all men!
Jesus calls his father daddy and we are amazed!
The single most significant reason for our amazement
is the circumstance of the revelation of filial intimacy. It
is after the Last Supper and Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane
praying to His Father. His Father has asked of him nothing short
of obedience to the worst torture, humiliation and death ever
experienced by a man. The weight of this is so heavy, it causes
Jesus to sweat drops of blood and to confide to his closest
friends: My soul is exceedingly sorrowful. Please remain
here with me and watch. He then walked a short distance and
fell flat on the ground and prayed to his father: If it is possible,
please let the hour pass from me. Daddy, all things are possible
to you; take this chalice from me: but not what I will, but
what you will (Mk 14:34-36, DRV). The intense labor and
pain and sorrow and dread cause Our Lord Jesus to cry out in
desperation to his all powerful daddy to rescind and to rescue
him from what is to come, if his father wills. Jesus calls His
father daddy in this the worst of circumstances and therefore
we are led to assume that He calls His Father daddy on every
day and in every circumstance. The Holy Spirit chooses this
circumstance to unveil the tenderness of the love between Father
and Son and the point is driven home to us.
Jesus knows his Father is very close to Him and
is suffering with him; He knows his Father is suffering the
agony of a father who knows what lays before his beloved, only
Son. This is the ultimate sacrifice, to ask His only Son to
give his life as an offering for sin; to bear the iniquities
of many and through his suffering to win pardon for their offenses
(Is 53:10-12). This is the sacrifice the Infinite Knowledge
knew was necessary to wrench all men from the death grip of
sin and Satan. The Eternal Father gave His only Son and He mourned
for him as one who mourns for His only son and He grieved
over him as over the death of a first born son (Zec 12:10).
Who can comprehend this love that the Father would ask His only
Son and His Son would so agree to extreme torment, torture and
death and for what?: to rescue those who reject the Father,
to rescue those who spit upon the Son, to rescue those who revile
and hate the Father and despise the Son! This is crazy love!
This is a love that is madness!
For the sake of the joy that lay before him
Jesus endured the cross, and its shame (Heb 12:2). After
his crucifixion, death and resurrection, in the garden Jesus
said to Mary Magdalene: I go to my Father and to your Father
(Jn 20:17). This is the love that is madness! This is the love
that you and I know because it is the love of the Father
who has rescued you and me from the power of evil spirit and
brought us into the Kingdom of Our Father’s beloved Son
(Col 1:13). This is the love by which we are born again of the
Eternal Father and adopted as His own children. What manner
of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called
and should be the sons of God (I Jn. 3:1, DRV); being
born again not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible seed
(1 Pt 1:23).
The astounding consequence of Our Lord’s crucifixion,
death and resurrection is that we can be adopted by the Eternal
Father and can become members of Jesus’s own family! We
are invited to call the Father of Jesus, Our Father. And not
only to call Him Father, but also to enter into an intimate,
tender, trusting relationship with Him; to know Him as Abba,
daddy, the most affectionate of names. We have received
the Spirit of adoption; whereby we cry, Abba (Rom 8:15).
All, especially those who have been neglected, mistreated
and rejected by their own father can be taken up into the arms
of the Eternal Father who will love them as His very own children
(Ps 27:10) and will wipe away their tears and they will
remember their sorrow no more (Is 25:8;Rev 21:4). This
is so unspeakably marvelous that it seems unbelievable. Perhaps
because it seems unbelievable, we do not know what it means
and we neglect this treasured inheritance and never enter into
a relationship with the Eternal Father.
This difficulty is expressed in the following
dialogue between Jesus and Adopted Son.
Jesus: approaches Adopted
Son and says: Come let us go to my Father. I want you to know
him as your Father.
Adopted son: hesitates
and then replies: Lord Jesus, if it is all the same to you,
you go on without me. I have heard of your Father who sits
upon a throne of flaming fire and is surrounded with thunders
and lightning (Rev 4:2,5). I have heard of His greatness
and I fear Him.
Jesus: As a father
has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on
you who fear Him (Ps 103:13).
Adopted son: You, most
precious Lord Jesus, are my high priest. Why do I need to go
to your Father?
Jesus: O you of little
understanding, do you not know that I am your High Priest precisely
to expiate your sins in order to reconcile you with My Eternal
Father!
Adopted Son: With all
due respect to you, most gracious Lord Jesus, I am not much
interested in a father. What I know of a father is that mine
was not around much and when he was, he either ignored me or
he criticized me or he yelled. I learned to get along fine without
a father and I am not interested in trying out another father.
Jesus: My father is
very interested in you and He listens attentively to your
conversations (Mal 3: 16). He will never criticize you
or hurt you. Neither will He ever betray you or abandon you.
He has sent His Spirit into your heart who wants you to
cry out to Him, Abba, Father (Gal 4:6).
Adopted Son: My Lord and priest forever
according to the Order of Melchizedek, I am honored by your
invitation to accompany you to your Father but I really feel
and the truth is Lord Jesus, you understand me. You know my
past, my sins and you have forgiven me. Your Father is too perfect
and too good to have me around.
Jesus: Son of Adoption,
listen to the words my Father longs for you to hear: When
you were a child, how I loved you and called you to be my son.
It was I who taught you to walk and bending down I fed you.
With tender cords of love I did lead you and when you fell I
gathered you in my arms and raised you to my face. But you did
not know that it was I who loved you and healed you. The more
I called to you, the farther you went from me. But how could
I give you up! My heart is overwhelmed (Hos 11:1-4,8).
Return to me, I implore you, and I will heal your defection
and will love you freely (Hos 14:5).
Adopted Son: He knows
my past and how I rebelled and sinned against him! I can not
go. I am too ashamed.
Jesus: O Adopted
Son, you who are tempest tossed and grieved, fear not. You shall
not be put to shame; you need not blush, for you will not be
disgraced. The shame of your youth, you shall forget. With great
tenderness the Father will take you to himself (Is 54:4,7,11).
Adopted Son: Maybe,
maybe I can forget my sins, but how can I face your Father who
never forgets anything?
Jesus: My Father will
say to you: Why do you remind me of your sins? I have forgotten
them for my own sake so that I can have a relationship with
you. I do not remember your sins (Is 43:25,26). Your sins
have been washed away with the blood of my Son Jesus and I
desire to clothe you in fine linen, white and clean (Rev
7:14;19:8).
Adopted Son recounts:
I arose in obedience and with fear and trembling set off to
approach the throne of the Eternal Father. When I was still
a great way off the Eternal Father saw me and was filled with
compassion and joy and He ran to me, gathered me in his embrace,
kissed me and said: Let us celebrate with a feast and make merry
with music and dancing because this son of mine was dead and
has come to life again; he was lost and has been found (Lk
15:20,22-24). My Father rejoiced over me with gladness and
renewed me in his love. He sang joyfully because of me
(Zep 3:17). I heard the voice of many harpers, harping on
their harps and singing a new canticle (Rev 14: 2-3), the
canticle of the Lamb: Great and wonderful are thy works O Lord
God Almighty, just and true are thy ways O King of ages. Who
shall not fear thee and magnify thy name for you alone are holy
and all nations shall come and adore you because your righteous
acts are manifest (Rev 15:3-4, DRV). My Father dried my
tears and smiled at me. Then my Eternal Father laughed and all
the heavens laughed with Him. His laughter filled my heart with
happiness and I laughed. The King of the Whole Universe is happy.
I have come home and you are my Father, and the Spirit in my
heart cries out to you Abba, daddy.
Our Father calls us to Himself, to participate
in His divine nature, in His joy and happiness, in His greatness
and goodness. He lifts us into His glorious presence and places
us within His tabernacle upon His throne (Rev 3:21) and says
Come to the great feast of the King (Rev 19:17). He
wills that we partake of His Sanctity, His Purity, and His Holiness.
Because sin and evil can not exist in His presence, His Holy
fire penetrates our flesh (Rev 4:4;Mal 3:2-3), cleanses it and
we lose our capacity to sin. In His presence we can not sin;
no one who remains in Him sins (1 Jn 3:6)! In His presence
there is perfection of goodness and truth, peace and joy and
we are changed so that we can stand` without fault before the
throne of God. St. John of Damascus said: By union with His
Divine Person, our flesh participates in the divine nature and
by this communion becomes like God by the operation of Divine
grace (St. John of Damascus, p.27).
Adopted Son recalls for us His experience of continually
sitting in the Presence of His Eternal Father and participating
in the divine reciprocal, revelatory relationship of love.
Adopted Son: I feel
His kindness and His goodness and His perfect knowledge of me.
I trust Him. He tells me the truth and gives me perfect counsel.
When I fall, He is stern and tells me to get up quickly and
to correct my errors. He infuses me with His hope that I can,
in Him, overcome all evil. He infuses me with His Chastity so
I can love as He loves. He calls me to the highest and best
that He has for me and gives me the ambition to attain it; to
be holy as He is Holy. He shares His eyes with me so that I
see others as He sees them. I see their potential and I do not
stumble over their flaws or envy their strengths. He causes
my heart to burn with the knowledge that they too can attain
the highest and best that He has for them and I am zealous to
pray for this.
This is Divine Paternity, the Fatherhood of God,
the powerful source of love that transforms His sons and daughters
into His likeness. The transformation of our person is not the
destruction of our nature. It is not the loss of selfhood. It
is not just a change of behavior, attitude or habits. The transformation
accomplished by Our Father is a marvel of Divine Omnipotence.
He lifts us up out of the limits of our nature and so penetrates
us with divine light that we lose the lowliness and imperfection
of our fallen nature and we receive the precious garment of
supranatural dignity. Take away the filthy garments from
him and say to him: I have caused your iniquity to pass from
you and I will clothe you in festal garments. Put a clean miter
on his head. See I have taken away your iniquity ( Zec
3:4-5). Bring the best robe and put it on him and a ring
for his hand and shoes for his feet (Lk 15:22).
Biological birth is not enough to fulfill the
purpose that God has ordained for us. Spiritual birth as the
Father’s adopted children is requisite. Adopted Son, in
his narrative, described well his rebirth and transformation.
Through union with Our Father, Adopted Son transcends his biological
characteristics of jealousy, possessiveness, exclusivity and
his demands for individual rights and selfish self-gratification.
He is no longer insecure and competitive for attention and he
has ceased to live in his fantasies and sensual thoughts. He
no longer believes what the psychologists told him: You are
just human and you must embrace and celebrate and express your
human urges! When Adopted Son did what the psychologists told
him he learned that sin is a pleasure that inflicts a wound.
And the pain of the wound demands more sinful pleasure to cure
the wound. But the wound is not cured by more sinful pleasure,
instead sinful pleasure inflicts more and worse painful wounds
that demand more and more sinful pleasures until Adopted Son
was lost in the fallen dark vortex that pulled him closer and
closer to death. The Cross of Jesus stopped his downward spiral
and through the hard labor of penance and prayer and spiritual
rebirth, he learned that the Lord alone gives pleasure that
is not mixed with pain. Adopted Son now exalts the Lord and
exclaims: I adore my Eternal Father and I am my Father’s
Son. I am like Him. My flesh has been deified! It is the relationship
with the Lord that transforms!
Transformation into the likeness of Eternal Father
has been decreed by the Supreme Majesty and Authority of God
the Father. It is brought into reality through our cooperation
with His superabundant grace. Our cooperation is to obediently
follow Jesus into a relationship with the Eternal Father; into
the communion of Trinitarian love and to live in it every day.
Through Eucharistic and personal communion, we talk with Him,
listen to Him, gaze in wonderment upon His glory and are one
with Him. Communion is union.
Just as the little boy becomes like his father
by living with and communing with his father, so too do all
men who live with and commune with the Eternal Father become
like Him who is the source of all true paternity. The relationship
with the Eternal Father is the source of all true fatherhood.
All fathers and all who will one day receive the title father,
are called to an intimate reciprocal relationship of communion
with the Eternal Father and through the relationship to become
fathers in the likeness of the Eternal Father. Then great will
be their fecundity as they bring all their spiritual sons and
daughters to the light of the Holy Trinity and to the Lord’s
Holy Feast. There they shall all be clothed upon with supranatural
grace and comeliness and all shall know the Eternal Father as
Abba.
All Scripture references are from the St.
Joseph edition of the New American Bible except for those notated
by DRV, Douay Rheims Version.
