Let God the Father be your Father

  We understand that He is Our Father.  We say the prayer every week at the height of Mass and we should be saying the prayer more than just that.  After all, He is Our Father for every day of the week.  Indeed, He is Our Father for every moment of our lives.  But do we accept Him as Our Father?

   If we are to accept God the Father as Our Father, we must call ourselves His children.  That is the most defining identity you and I have.  It is an eternal reality.  Sure, we may have a family on earth destined for eternity in Heaven, but our very existence comes from The Father that loved us into existence.  We would be nothing without Him.

   And so, we accept Got the Father as Our Father.  And, like any father, He has rules for us to live by.  So, we need to obey His rules.  After all, they are rules of love.  They direct us in how to live by love.  Breaking them would be to break ourselves, because we would be denying Our Father and the reason for our being.

   And after the rules, we are all given tasks all our own.  The rules apply to everyone, but these are what we are asked to do above and beyond the rules.  After all, Our Father cannot direct us all to do the same thing.  He does not need billions of programmers.  But Our Father does need us to listen to Him, so we can hear what He is asking of us.

   While the task of accepting God the Father as Our Father may seem much, remember that a father has responsibilities to his children.  He must provide for their needs, protect them, guide them, and reconcile them when they go astray.  Indeed, our tasks of accepting Our Father seem miniscule.  Indeed, even doing what Our Father asks relies upon Him to instruct us.  He initiates and we receive.  From Him, we receive our identity and our very being.  Let Him be your Father, and He will take care of the rest.

   Jesus, it is through You that we have become sons and daughters of God.  As the Eternal Son, You shared Your Sonship with us in order that we might be Your brothers and sisters in an eternal relationship of love with You and Our Father in the Holy Spirit.  Help us to be good sons and daughters.  Amen.