He is not ‘my; God, but ‘our’ God
Our Father, He is the Father of a great family; he is our Father. He knows that he has a unique love, but he does not know how to bear or raise an “only child”. He is the God of the home, of brotherhood, of bread broken and shared. He is the God who is “Our Father”, not “my father” or “your stepfather”.—Pope Francis
As I age, if there is a stumbling block to my faith; it would be the conviction that God is the unique Father of each individual. It is much easier to believe that God sees humankind but does not see each of us as separate, loved and sought after. How is the possible? Well as far as we experience life, I would say it is not possible. Yet it happens. God is other, yet not less than we are but something ‘wholly other’ and incomprehensible to the human mind. Even when thinking of ‘Infinite Love’, it goes way beyond anything we can truly understand and the same goes for mercy. Religion gets really crazy and sick, I believe, when we think we have it figured out how God loves and relates to us.
In the Incarnation, the “Word became flesh” to give us an inklings of God, his love, compassion, and mercy. Jesus has also revealed how important our everyday choices are and how dreadful the gift of free will is because it can lead us from the love of God. People don’t want to hear that, or if believed, it is something that is put on others, sans themselves. Keeping their selves exempt from the human enterprise of choosing to allow grace to create us, rather than we creating ourselves. Self-Creation apart from God’s grace is a path that leads to becoming totally self- absorbed to the exclusion of all others. For me, this is not comforting at all, but if truly understood could lead to terror….such is the price of freedom.
Yet we are told not to fear, because God, the Infinite, the wholly other, the Incomprehensible, has revealed to us that his true nature is ‘Love’ and “Mercy’.
I still don’t fully understand it, yet my depth of my trust in God’s love for me and all others deepens as I age. So. when I pray the “Our Father”, I am united to everyone, past, present and future, for when said prayerfully, it is addressed to “Our Father”, not my father. God is not owned by anyone no matter the depth of their faith or understanding.
Br. Mark Dohle, OCSO
Holy Spirit Monastery
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From Sister Faustina’s diary
39) Let the greatest sinners place their trust in My mercy. They have the right before others to trust in the abyss of My mercy. My daughter, write about My mercy towards tormented souls. Souls that make an appeal to My mercy delight Me. To such souls I grant even more graces than they ask. I cannot punish even the greatest sinner if he makes an appeal to My compassion, but on the contrary, I justify him in My unfathomable and inscrutable mercy. Write: before I come as a just Judge, I first open wide the door of My mercy. He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice….. Faustian Diary 1146
