516 "ABBA",--FATHER!

AVE MARIA

YOUCAT Lesson 516

YOUCAT the catechism for Catholic youth

516  How can people say “Father” to God if they have been tormented or abandoned by their earthly father/their earthly parents?

Human fathers and mothers often distort the image of a kind, fatherly God.  Our Father in heaven, however, is not the same as our experiences of human parents.  We must purify our image of God from all our own ideas so as to be able to encounter him with unconditional trust.  [2779]

The apostle  Philip was from Galilee the region in northern Israel where Jesus' ministry was centered. .... 516

Philip said to him, “Master, show us the Father,^* and that will be enough for us.”  Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?  Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works.  Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves.  John 14:8-11

Even individuals who have been raped by their own father can learn to pray the Our Father.  Often it is their task in life to allow themselves to experience a love that was cruelly refused them by others but that nevertheless exists in a marvelous way, beyond all human imagining.

For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, “Abba,^* Father!” –Romans 8:15

 “God never ceases to be the Father of his children.”  St. Anthony of Padua (1198-1226, Franciscan)

[2779]

II. ABBA - "FATHER!"

2779 Before we make our own this first exclamation of the Lord's Prayer, we must humbly cleanse our hearts of certain false images drawn "from this world." Humility makes us recognize that "no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him," that is, "to little children."( Matthew 11:25-27.)³⁰ The purification of our hearts has to do with paternal or maternal images, stemming from our personal and cultural history, and influencing our relationship with God. God our Father transcends the categories of the created world. To impose our own ideas in this area "upon him" would be to fabricate idols to adore or pull down. To pray to the Father is to enter into his mystery as he is and as the Son has revealed him to us. 

The expression God the Father had never been revealed to anyone. When Moses himself asked God who he was, he heard another name. The Father's name has been revealed to us in the Son, for the name "Son" implies the new name "Father."( Tertullian, De orat. 3:Patrologia Latina 1,1155.)³¹ –Catechism of the Catholic Church