Pope at General Audience: address
God as a child would his father
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| Pope Francis at Generak Audience in the Pauk VI Hall. (Vatican Media) |
Pope Francis continued his catechesis on the "Our
Father" during the weekly General Audience in the Paul VI Hall, telling
those present always to trust in His love.
By Linda Bordoni
Elaborating on the concept of “Father”, Pope Francis assured
the faithful that the Lord “will not hide his face from us” nor “will he
close himself in silence” because, as our Father, He never looses sight of
us and loves us unconditionally even when we think we are unworthy.
The Pope explained that there is also something maternal in
the love of the Father, who accompanies and nurtures the development of our new
life in Christ as his adoptive sons and daughters.
God, he said, is not only a father: he is like a
mother who never ceases to love her children or to want to be part of their
lives.
His love for us, he said, lasts forever, and generates an
“an infinite circuit of love”. Thus when we pray we must do so with the trust
of a child in his father.
The word "Father"
Pope Francis pointed out that even those who feel they have
sinned, or taken the wrong path have a father who loves them. It is to the
Father we must always turn, and He will always answer: “Never forget
to say ‘Father’!”.
Pope Francis explained that even the earliest Christians,
guided by the Holy Spirit, prayed using the Aramaic word for “Father” – Abba -
that Jesus himself had used.
The New Testament prayer, he continued, seems to want to
"get to the essential”, to the point of concentrating precisely on the
word: "Abba, Father": “at the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer, we hear
an echo of the voice of Jesus himself” who teaches the Disciples that to pray
is to share in his own intimate and trusting relationship with the Father.
In fact, after having known Jesus and listened to his preaching,
the Pope said Christians no longer considered God as a tyrant to be feared,
they were no longer afraid of him, but felt at ease in calling the Creator
“Father”.
A child's relationship with his father
Pope Francis also reflected on how it is not only a question
of using a symbol, the figure of the father “to be linked to the mystery of
God”, but of having "Jesus’ world decanted into one's own
heart". Saying "Abba," he explained, is something much
more “intimate, more moving” than simply calling God “Father”.
And he invited the faithful to pray to the Father with the
heart of a child: “a child who is completely wrapped in the embrace of a father
who feels infinite tenderness for him or for her”.
Words that come to life
The Pope continued his reflection speaking about how the
Lord’s prayer takes on “meaning and colour” if we learn to pray after
reading the passage of the merciful father, as told by Luke in the parable of
the prodigal son.
The prodigal son, he explained was embraced by the father
“who had waited a long time”, “who did not remember the offensive words”
addressed to him, but who made it quite clear “how much he had missed him”.
God, the Father he said, knows no hatred, no revenge, no
anger, he knows only love.
The Pope said that in that parable, the father expresses his
love in a ‘maternal’ way, “like a mother who apologizes to her children, who
covers up for them, who wants to be part of their lives” even when the child
has distanced her or himself from her.
Even in the most difficult times in our lives, Pope Francis
concluded, may we never be afraid to turn in trust and confidence to the
Father, praying in the words that Jesus taught us: “Abba”, “Our Father”.
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