I want to begin by posing two questions for each of you to think about…
- What are some things that come to mind when we think about our dads?
- Now what comes to mind when we think about God as Father?
Sometimes that second question can be a lot harder for us to answer, can’t it? Because, let’s be honest, a lot of times we don’t have that deep, personal experience with God…or we don’t see Him as a father. And often times, our experience of God can be a bit distorted because our idea of fatherhood is based off of what we experience with our own earthly fathers.
Where is the first place that we tend to encounter love, relationship, compassion, tenderness? That usually happens in the family, at home, right? Or at least it should. Our biological families give us that initial experience that helps to set the tone for how we connect with others for the rest of our lives. It sets the tone for how we express love, affection; for how we resolve conflicts, how we process emotions, how we learn about responsibility, how we learn how to pray. It sets the tone for how we connect with God.
But the relationships that we have with certain members of our families can be complicated. Think about some of the members of your own families for a second. Your annoying little brother or sister. Maybe a mom who nags at you to do your chores, to get your homework done, to get ready for church. Maybe an older brother or sister who picks on you. These are people that we love the most…but they’re also the people that we sometimes absolutely dread…the people who frustrate us the most.
But I want to focus on our relationship with our dads for a bit…because it is that relationship that sets the tone for how we see God, how we trust God, how we interact with God.
It can be really hard for us to understand God as Father without being influenced by our preexisting ideas of what a dad is supposed to be. When we talk about our dads, sometimes that brings us a sense of joy and comfort; other times, it might stir up in us feelings of abandonment, of hurt, of grief, of sadness, of fear, or of anger. Whatever comes to mind when we think about our dads, guys, those things impact how we see God. If we have a really good dad, someone who takes good care of us, who loves us unconditionally – sometimes we can struggle to see the need for a Heavenly Father. If our relationship with our biological dads or our step dads isn’t as good, we can struggle to understand how God loves us as a Father. We can project our own understanding of Fatherhood onto God, almost creating a false personality for Him…or giving Him characteristics and qualities that don’t belong to Him.
In my own life, guys, I was terrified of my dad. Because even though he was someone who was always there supporting us with making sure we had everything we needed, even though he always showed up for our sports activities, or extracurricular activities, he was emotionally absent to us. The only time we got emotion out of my dad was when he was angry. He had quite the temper and, let me tell you, that temper got activated quite easily. But it got to the point where I became afraid of my dad – afraid of talking to him about things I was struggling with, afraid to tell him when I made a mistake, afraid to ask for help when I needed it. It taught me to not trust him and to rely only on myself. And that has sadly impacted the way that I see God. Even as a priest, it’s sometimes hard for me to relate to God as a loving Father. I have to constantly work on that…I have to keep asking the Lord to heal that. And thankfully He is. But I still have a ways to go.
At some point in my life…and all of us have to do this…if we want a relationship with God, if we want to know who He truly is, we have to take a step back, we have to get out of our own heads, we have to lay down our preconceived notions of who He is and get to know who He is. So today, on this retreat, I want to encourage you to put those ideas about God to the side and, in a special way, ask Him to reintroduce Himself to you.
St. John Vianney once said: “We are the children of God, and if we do not feel it, it is because we do not understand it.” So, with that in mind, let’s look at who God really is. Where do we get that clearer picture? Scripture. From the Tradition of the Church that has been handed down to us.
At the core, God’s deepest identity is a Father. Jesus Himself has told us that throughout the Gospels. What prayer do we say every day at Mass? The Our Father. What are some other places in Scripture that we see this identity for God?
- Isaiah 64:7 – “Yet, LORD, you are our father; we are the clay and you our potter: we are all the work of your hand.”
- 1 John 3:1 – “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are.”
- Ephesians 4:4-6 – “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”
- Romans 8:14-15 – “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 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!’”
Where else do we see this idea of God as Father? In the Creed that we say on Sundays and Solemnities…we profess: “I believe in God, the Father Almighty.” It not only tells us that God is a Father but it shows us a little more about what kind of Father He is. He is almighty – it tells us something about His power, His greatness. That He is all knowing. That He sees everything that happens to us, all things that go on in our hearts.
From many of the saints of the Church and many of the Popes throughout the centuries…they have also talked about God as Father.
St. Thomas Aquinas: “The worship of God has the highest right to be called piety, and God has the highest right to be called our Father.”
St. Padre Pio: “Remember that God is your Father, and that He loves you beyond compare.”
St. Alphonsus Liguori: “The love of our heavenly Father is as real as His works. It is as perfect as His essence. Nothing can take it from us. Nothing can diminish it. It is ours as truly as we are His children.”
St. Teresa of Ávila: “O Lord, my God, You are my Father; and I am your child!”
“We are not the accidental and senseless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.” – Pope Benedict XVI
God is the Father of all creation. He created us out of love. He didn’t need to create us. He is God. There is nothing that He needs. Yet, He chose to create us because He wanted the love that He had to be able to be expressed to us. We are His best creations. As we heard already in that scripture passage from the First Letter of St. John: we are His children. We are His beloved sons and daughters…even if we don’t feel like it. We are His beloved because we have been baptized. We have been adopted into the relationship that God as Father shared with Jesus His Son, through the Holy Spirit.
Think back to the Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist in the Jordan. After Jesus came out of the water, the voice of the Father came down from heaven. He said: “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.” The same thing happens to us…now, it doesn’t happen as dramatically as that…but that same truth is given to us. God claims us in the moment that we are baptized. We are transformed in that moment. We become His children. We become a new creation. We have to start believing that.
Every single one of us here is constantly being invited to go deeper with the Lord, to enter into deeper relationship with Him. Pope St. John Paul II said, “the whole spiritual life is a journey to the heart of the Father.” But in order to take that journey, in order to know who we are and who we are called to be, we have to understand and know who the Father is. That’s why we are starting this retreat with this talk.
I want to close with this thought from Pope Francis. He said: “The entire mystery of Christian prayer is summed up here, in this word: to have the courage to call God by the name of Father.” Y’all, God loves each and every one of us like we are the only people in the world. We just have to get to the place to discover that love. We need the courage to invite the Lord into our hearts, asking Him to allow us to see that, to experience it. So if there is one thing that you do this weekend, ask the Father to allow you to experience His love for you. Ask Him to come into your hearts on this retreat and to encounter Him as Father. Be brave. Be courageous. Step out of your comfort zone. What have you got to lose? If you do that, it’ll change your life…if not this weekend, at some point in the future. I promise you. Let’s have the courage to do that.
Fr. Tom Pringle 