Calling God ‘Father’:
Key to Christian identity and mission
By Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted
The Catholic Sun
Part Two
Christ tells us to call God “Father” when we pray (Mt 6:9), “This is how you are to pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name…” We say “Father” because we believe that God is indeed “the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth” and that Jesus is “His only Son, our Lord” (Apostles Creed).
To Jesus, the Father said (Mk 1:11), “You are my beloved Son.” And through Christ and the gift of Baptism, the Father says to us, “You are my beloved daughters and sons.”
In Part One of this series, we explained how calling God “Father” affirms our identity in Christ, the eternal Son. In Part Two of this series, let us consider how calling God “Father” makes a difference in our Christian mission in the world.
God’s Fatherhood calls us beyond individualism
In teaching us to call God “Father,” Jesus beckons us beyond the slogans of a “me-generation” and beyond temptations to selfish pride. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains (#2792), “If we pray the Our Father sincerely, we leave individualism behind, because the love that we receive frees us from it. The ‘our’ at the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer, like the ‘us’ of the last four petitions, excludes no one. If we are to say it truthfully, our divisions and oppositions have to be overcome.”
Because God is my Father, every man is my brother, every woman is my sister. This is true whether my sister is poor and needy or she is rich and famous, whether my brother is an undocumented migrant or a Gulf Coast evacuee, whether they are graduates of Notre Dame or convicts awaiting execution on Death Row.
The reality of being the Father’s children calls us beyond our feelings toward others to the objective truth of who they are. We may not feel like reaching out to the homeless, we may not feel like forgiving those who trespass against us, but the freedom the Father gives us in Baptism and the other sacraments allows us to rise above subservience to our feelings and to love every neighbor as ourselves. Just as God reminded Cain that he was his brother’s keeper, so He calls us to treat others as true sisters and brothers. This is possible because of God’s grace; still, it requires the humility to become like children.
Trust like a child
Jesus says, “Unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven” (Mt 18:3-4). Why does Christ demand that we become like children? He does so because children have the natural tendency to trust their mother and father, and to trust their heavenly Father. When we are born again of water and the Holy Spirit (Cf. John 3:3ff), trust is returned to our hearts with the grace to obey the Father in all things. This grace gives us an unshakable confidence that God’s will is always what is best for us, even if we do not understand. To be a child means I am ready to obey without fear.
St. Paul describes the gift of faith as follows, “As proof that you are children, God sent the spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’ So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God” (Gal 4:6-7).
We dare to say, ‘Father’
When we gather as God’s family, especially in the Sacred Liturgy, our prayer is addressed to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. We dare to say “Father” because Jesus taught us to address our prayers in this way. We pray as His beloved children, as brothers and sisters to one another.
To underline the highly personal nature of this prayer, personal pronouns are used. When praying in Spanish, for example, we say “tu” in referring to the Father, rather than the more formal “usted.” When praying in English, the congregation responds during the dialogue that begins the Preface, “It is right to give Him thanks and praise.” Just prior to that, the congregation prays, “May the Lord receive this sacrifice at your hands for the praise and glory of His name, for our good and the good of all His Church.” The use of the pronoun “His” rather than the formal “God’s” underscores the highly personal nature of our prayer, and it calls to mind that our prayer is directed to “the Father.”
Sent on mission
At the conclusion of the Mass the deacon or priest tells us, “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” In response to our loving Father, we then go forth as His children. However, in our love and service we need to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” We are, in other words, to be both mature and childlike. St. Paul put it this way (1 Cor 14:20), “Stop being childish in your thinking. In respect to evil be like infants, but in your thinking be mature.”
The task of handing on the Good News to others succeeds to the degree that we are courageous yet pure, humble but strong. When we resist the temptation to lord it over others and when we rejoice in being children of the Father, we shall be convincing witnesses of the Gospel of Life.
Be not afraid
The great challenges that we face in evangelizing our culture tempt us to turn to worldly means to “strengthen” our efforts. But Christ repeatedly warns against this unwise choice. He says to us (Lk 12:22-25, 32): “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life and what you will eat, or about your body and what you will wear. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. Notice the ravens: they do not sow or reap; they have neither storehouse nor barn, yet God feeds them. How much more important are you than birds! Can any of you by worrying add a moment to your life span? If even the smallest things are beyond your control, why are you anxious about the rest? …Do not be afraid any longer, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the Kingdom.”
And He adds (Mt 5:43-44), “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute, that you may be children of your heavenly Father.”
Our identity and mission are grounded in the love of the Father. Once we believe firmly that we are beloved children of God, and once we develop the practice of calling Him “Father,” then nothing can destroy our hope, and nothing can shake our faith.
In Part Three of this series we will consider how God’s Fatherhood helps dads in their vocation.
Copyright 2005 The Catholic Sun
