God is Father

“I cannot think of anything more important for us than to work at establishing the conviction that God is Father.”

What does it mean for me to call God my Father? Often I imagine some of us may cringe at the idea of “overemphasizing” the fatherhood of God. Whether we gawk at this statement because of our wounded relationships within our families, our religious convictions, or our political persuasions, Christians must work to boldly proclaim this scriptural reality: that to Jesus, and unto us, God is Father. As Creator, God is Father. The Father begets. God “fathers” creation. It is from God that all earthly men become fathers. Often we are afraid or resistant to call God by this beautiful, bold name because we see Him in light of our warped relationships with famished and fallen fathers.

God is the first and the last, the beginning and the end—the first and the final Father for us all. To cry out to Him in faith, in abandonment and trust, is to be a true child. And this Advent season, marking the beginning of this our Church’s “Year of Grace,” is one that challenges me to cry out in confidence to a God who hears me and draws near to me in the baby Jesus, who emerges from the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The greatest grace God can give—and has given me—is the grace of adoption. In my baptism, I am His Son. God is my Father; I am His beloved Son. This Advent season, in Jesus, of Mary, I am also born. This is the story of how the Body of Christ came into this world. To consider what it means to call God my Father, to grow in that conviction that God is Father, demands that I grow in my conviction of who Christ is—the Son—and who I am, a son, forgiven, adopted, sanctified, saved.

This advent, the season of the coming of the Son, I need to spend more time wondering and relishing in the truth that God calls me His Beloved Son. Over the course of the next few weeks, months, who knows—perhaps even a lifetime—I invite you to reflect more concretely on these questions, these ideas, these realities with me. 

The following meditation was written by Ruth Burrows, ODC, from Through Him, With Him, In Him: Meditations on the Liturgical Cycle, pp.29-30.

“You are My Son”… Jesus can only say with His life “You are my Father,” because the Father has already called Him “my beloved Son.” Jesus lives to the full the sonship already given Him.

“Glory to God in the highest and peace to men.” Here is perfect fulfillment because God is our Friend, our Father. He bestows sonship on us, begets us in Jesus. Do we live out the sonship thus bestowed? The tidings of immense joy are for you, for me, for each one without exception—for all people. Each one of us may say “You are my Father.” If we be truly human, if we would give glory to God, our lives must say it.

It is easy to make general statements. Our living sonship, our affirmation of God’s fatherhood is a moment by moment business. Fatherhood means nothing unless it is exercised at every moment of our lives, and we must recognize it and respond. We need enlightened eyes of the heart to pierce the disguise, to say “Yes, You are my Father” in the now. There is only one point, so to speak, where God is for us, and that is the now.

How readily we would escape from the now—into what we think should be, to what may be, to what has been, to what is coming. How much energy and attention we waste worrying over the past, being anxious and doubtful and full of fear for the future. “I can’t go on like this”; “I can’t cope with this day after day”; If I surrender to God there is no knowing what will be asked”, etc. etc. All that is unreal. God isn’t in it.

He is with me now; quietly, unobtrusively asking me to receive Him, to recognize Him. Now in this one little circumscribed moment, I can say, “Yes, Father.” Such a poor little “yes”; no grandiose certainties that I will never do this again, never commit that fault again—no dreads and despairs that I cannot be faithful. Only a little “Yes” now. And the “Yes” may be no more than, “I want to say “Yes”, even though I feel I can’t say it fully.” But that is “Yes”! That is to live in my poverty relying on Him to see me through, to enable me to say “Yes”—to do what I can’t—be faithful unto death.

Oh, how simple it is, that poor little “Yes” in the now; not in the future, not even an hour ahead, but now—and yet it is all that is required for God to give Himself entirely. This is to live sonship, total dependency, our whole life affirming “You are my Father.”

I cannot think of anything more important for us than to work at establishing the conviction that God is Father. If only so much of the time and energy we expend on ourselves, our moods, our imaginary world were devoted to a constant alertness to the glorious transforming truth “You are my Father” and its reply “You are my son.”