God, our Father

There is no Father like our Father in heaven. Our thought about the Father can go wrong, but Truth in its fullness is revealed through Jesus.

I was going to a parish near Boston from the Port Authority bus stand in New York. I wish to share with you an incident – rather a God experience which I had during that journey.

I have been, of late, pondering over and contemplating on the relationship of Jesus with His Father and his revelations about the Father. I have noticed some specialities in the prayer of Jesus to his Father in the Bible. The first one of these is that Jesus always began his prayer, addressing ‘Father’. Secondly, the Gospel writer tells us that he prayed lifting his eyes to heaven and calling out to his Father (Lk 9:16; 22:42; 23:34; Jn 11:41; 17:1). In spite of all our limitations, Jesus revealed his Father to us through the Word of God and through many of His deeds.

I have been praying repeating the words Jesus uttered about the Father. “Your Father who sees your prayer in secret will reward you” (Mt. 6:6). Your Father who sees you giving alms in secret promises you a reward (Mt. 6:3,4). Your good works should lead to the glorification of the Father (Mt. 5:16). “The Father will give you all that you ask for in the name of Jesus” (Jn 14:13,14). I used to pray repeating these verses. I have been meditating over the glorious work of the Father during my five hour journey from New York to Boston.

During that time I heard a voice above my head, ‘I am God the Father’. God the Father was revealed to me by way of an audible voice! Whatever the Father reveals, has to be revealed to others. The Father has revealed himself to us through Jesus. “The Father and I are one” (Jn 10:30). “The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves” (Jn 14:10-11).

On calling out to God the Holy Spirit, we will be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit which will enable us to call out God the Father, according to the epistle of St. Paul to the Ephesians and Galatians. “For all 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 have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom 8:15).

“And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of His son into our hearts crying Abba Father!” (Gal 4:6). John’s Gospel reminds us that the Father who loves Jesus loves us too. “Those who love me will keep my Word and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them” (Jn 14:23). God desires that all should call him Father and it has been revealed in the Old Testament through prophet Jeremiah. We will take those words of Jeremiah as direct utterances to us. “I thought how I would set you among my children, and give you a pleasant land, the most beautiful heritage of all the nations. And I thought you would call me ‘My Father’ and would not turn from following me” (Jer 3:19).

Let us call him Father lovingly and fulfill his wish! Thus God will become our Father and we his children. There is no Father like our Father in heaven. “And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father – the one in heaven” (Mat. 23:9).Our thought about the Father can go wrong, but Truth in its fullness is revealed through Jesus. Let us grow in prayer through the prayer of the Holy Spirit in the Word of God. God the Father speaks to us. God the Father who revealed everything to Jesus, living in Him and talking through Him, abides in us in the name of Jesus and speaks through us and acts through us.

Let us wait in prayer for the God experience and to receive graces that befit the children of God in order to grow in our faith in God the Father following the prayers of prophets and disciples who called out to our Father. Like Jesus who sought the will of the Father through prayer at dawn as well as dusk, we too will keep aside a good amount of time, seeking God in the calmness as well as turbulence of our day-to-day life. We will pray to the Almighty who is God of all time and season, to unite us in Him in His mercy.

August 2009

Daily Intercessions through the Word of God – August 2009
Sanctuary Intercessors – India Branch of FBB
International Catholic Charismatic Missionary Intercessors of the Fellowship of the Burning Bush (FBB)
The ‘Intercession Diary’ has the approval and blessings of the Bishops’ Team of the Archdiocese and contains intentions of our Cardinal and the Bishops
(Join us in agreement to intercede each day according to the Scriptures, ask the Holy Spirit how to pray to actualize God’s promises in each situation)

Day/Date Interceding According to the Mind of Christ – Specially Dedicated to the Priests of our Archdiocese

Sat
1/8/2009
Mal 4:6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers
Pope Benedict XVI has declared June 2009 to June 2010 as the ‘Year for Priests’. And so this month, in which we celebrate the 150th death anniversary of St. John Mary Vianney, the patron of priests, we focus our intercession to pray for our priests. Today the church celebrates the feast of St Alphonsus Ligouri. We pray for priests of the congregation he founded, the Redemptorists, who boldly preach and teach, especially through parish missions. Pray that they are empowered by the Holy Spirit with the charism specially in our times to reach hardened and rebellious hearts thereby bringing reconciliation in family life

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For our Priests

“Take this, all of you, and eat it: this is my body”

Despite the numerous occasions one has heard these words; if rightly disposed, each time can be a truly awe-inspiring experience.

And if we can feel such a strong commune with the divine, we can only imagine what the priest experiences each day at the altar. In fact, a great saint spoke of the priesthood as if incapable of fathoming the grandeur of the gift and task entrusted to a human creature. He said, “O, how great is the priest! … If he realized what he is, he would die… God obeys him: he utters a few words and the Lord descends from heaven at his voice, to be contained within a small host…”.

This great saint was St John Marie Vianney, the Patron Saint of Priests. And it is in celebration of his 150th death anniversary, that, inspired by the Holy Spirit, our Holy Father inaugurated the “Year for Priests” – a year, in the words of Pope Benedict XVI, “meant to deepen the commitment of all priests to interior renewal for the sake of a stronger and more incisive witness to the Gospel in today’s world”.

And so this ‘august’ month, when we celebrate the 150th death anniversary of the Curé of Ars and Vianney Sunday we specially “pray without ceasing” (1Thes 5:17) for our priests. Our priests need our prayers. The priesthood needs our prayers. “How can we not think of all those priests who are offended in their dignity, obstructed in their mission and persecuted, even at times to offering the supreme testimony of their own blood?”, Pope Benedict XVI writes in his letter announcing this special year of grace.

The Holy Father adds, “There are also, sad to say, situations which can never be sufficiently deplored where the Church herself suffers as a consequence of infidelity on the part of some of her ministers.” “How can we forget, in this regard, that nothing causes more suffering for the Church, the Body of Christ, than the sins of her pastors, especially the sins of those who become “thieves and robbers” of the sheep (cf. John 10:1 ff.), lead them astray by their own private teachings, or ensnare them in the toils of sin and death?” he states in his homily while inaugurating the Year of Priests.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (#1589) quotes St. Gregory of Nazianzus, as a young priest, “We must begin by purifying ourselves before purifying others; we must be instructed to be able to instruct, become light to illuminate, draw close to God to bring him close to others, be sanctified to sanctify, lead by the hand and counsel prudently.

Let us this month truly cry out to the Lord. Let us this month stand in the gap (Ezekiel 22:30) for those who stand at our altar. Let us fast and pray to the Good Shepherd for our shepherds – especially our bishops who serve the Archdiocese of Bombay.

Let us take our rightful place as a ‘royal priesthood’ (1Pet2:9) since “the whole Church is a priestly people” (CCC 1591) and intercede for the ‘ministerial priesthood” (CCC 1592), along with Mary, Mother of Priests, in the name of Jesus Christ, the Eternal High Priest (Heb4:14), “asking God to grant the ordained the graces of the Holy Spirit required for his ministry” (CCC1597). Come Holy Spirit and fill our Priests. Amen.