Thursday 21 June
Matthew 6:7-15 St Aloysius Gonzaga (Memorial)
What attributes do you ascribe to God? In other words, who is God? And what is God like? All-powerful is a good start. All-holy is hot on its heels. All-knowing is bang on the money. As are the qualities of omnipresence and being full of mercy, compassion, kindness. Absolutes like Truth, Wisdom, Love and Justice go some way to expressing God’s transcendence and otherness.
From the beginning the Jewish people through the Law and the Prophets cultivated a sense of God’s holiness, otherness and transcendence. Perhaps nowhere is this better expressed than when Moses encountered the burning bush and heard a voice say: ‘Do not come near; put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground’ (Exod. 3:5).
Jesus, by his cross and resurrection, transformed the way we think about God and approach him. Jesus crossed the threshold of the divine holiness, for when he had made purification for sins he brought us into the Father’s presence, declaring: ‘Here am I, and the children God has given me’ (Heb. 2:13). By his saving death Jesus won for us a new way of relating to God. Fear, dread, apprehension and judgement gave way to straightforward simplicity, filial trust, joyous assurance, humble boldness and the certainty of being loved. St Peter Chrysologus put it like this: ‘Our awareness of our status as slave would make us sink into the ground and our earthly condition would dissolve into dust, if the authority of the Father himself and the Spirit of his Son had not impelled us to this cry, “Abba, Father.” When would a mortal dare call God “Father” if our innermost being were not animated from the power on high?
What a blessing we have received in simply being able to recite and pray the Our Father. Just as no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the power of the Holy Spirit, so no one can say the Our Father without the same Spirit. We come to know the Father through the grace of revelation and are enabled to cry out to God as our ‘Abba Father’. Today pray the Our Father slowly, carefully, prayerfully, and praise God for this gift which he has so generously poured out upon us.
God in heaven, we give praise and thanks to you for the grace to be able to call you God and Father.
Ecclesiasticus 48:1-14 • Psalm 96(97):1-7
Matthew 6:7-15
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