Day 356: We Dare to Say (2777-2785)

• It’s Day 356!!

• ARTICLE 2: ‘OUR FATHER WHO ART IN HEAVEN”

• “WE DARE TO SAY”

• Paragraph 2777 says, “In the Roman liturgy, the Eucharistic assembly is invited to pray to our heavenly Father with filial boldness; the Eastern liturgies develop and use similar expressions: ‘dare in all confidence,’ ‘make us worthy of…’ From the burning bush Moses heard a voice saying to him, ‘Do not come near; put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.’ Only Jesus could cross that threshold of the divine holiness, for ‘when he had made purification for sins,’ he brought us into the Father’s presence: ‘Here am I, and the children God has given me.’ Our awareness of our status as slaves would make us sink into the ground and our earthly condition would dissolve into dust, if the authority of our Father himself and the Spirit of his Son had not impelled us to this cry…‘Abba, Father!’...When would a mortal dare to call God ‘Father,’ if man’s innermost being were not animated by power from on high?”

• In private or public, we get to kneel and actually call upon God as our Father

• “FATHER!”

• We are actually His beloved and adopted sons and daughters

• The heart of today’s teaching is the fact that because of what the Holy Spirit has made real and because of what Jesus has done for us, you and I actually truly have our God in Heaven who is our Father, who is Abba, who is Dad

• IT IS INCREDIBLE!!

• Let’s pray!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, Abba, Dad in Heaven, we thank you so much. Thank you for your Son, Jesus Christ. Thank you for your Holy Spirit that you have poured into our hearts that allow us to cry out Abba! Thank you, Lord God, for bringing us to this moment, for bringing us to this day, bringing us to Day 356 and for reminding us that regardless of how we have lived, if we have lived as the son who has run away from home and wants nothing to do with you, or if we have lived as the son who stated at home but has served you as a slave and not as a son, we ask that you please, let us live in your home. Let us live in your house. Let us live in your heart. Let us return home in repentance. Let us return to your heart with trust. Lord God, we praise you and bless you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for making us your sons and daughters. Help us to find our home in your heart, our true and real Father. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen”

• So there we have it!!

• Paragraph 2784 says, “The free gift of adoption requires on our part continual conversion and new life. Praying to our Father should develop in us two fundamental dispositions: First, the desire to become like him: though created in his image, we are restored to his likeness by grace; and we must respond to this grace. We must remember…and know that when we call God ‘our Father’ we ought to behave as sons of God. You cannot call the God of all kindness your Father if you preserve a cruel and inhuman heart; for in this case you no longer have in you the marks of the heavenly Father’s kindness. We must contemplate the beauty of the Father without ceasing and adorn our own souls accordingly.”

• Paragraph 2785 says, “Second, a humble and trusting heart that enables us ‘to turn and become like children’: for it is to ‘little children’ that the Father is revealed. [The prayer is accomplished] by the contemplation of God alone, and by the warmth of love, through which the soul, molded and directed to love him, speaks very familiarly to God as to its own Father with special devotion. Our Father: at this name love is around in us…and the confidence of obtaining what we are about to ask…What would he not give to his children who ask, since he has already granted them the gift of being his children?”

• This is what God has done to us and for us

• He has made us His adopted sons and daughters by the Holy Spirit by Faith and Baptism

• So we get to call God our Father

• Not every human being who is born is a son or daughter of God

• Yes, we all share in the image of God

• Yes, we are all beloved creatures of God

• BUT…

• It is only by Faith and Baptism that we become God’s sons and daughters by adoption

• So we need to stop and give God thanks for that

• Maybe some of us listening to this has never had a day pass by that you were not aware that you are an adopted son or daughter of God

• Fr. Mike was baptized on March 1, 1977 (I was baptized on Nov 11, 1976 😉)

• Let’s listen to Fr. Mike talk about his parents who taught him how to pray…

• GOD IS YOUR FATHER!!

• BUT…

• How many of us who were baptized when we were little don’t realize that we don’t actually weigh up and count out the difference that it makes that God is our Father?

• What is the difference that it makes?

• This whole PILLAR 4: HOW WE PRAY begins with what?

• “Lord, teach us to pray.”

• Jesus responds by saying, “When you pray, do not babble like the pagans who think that because of their many words they will be heard. When you pray say, ‘Our Father…’”

• People think we Catholics repeat ourselves in prayer with the Rosary, Chaplet of Divine Mercy etc.

• They tell us that Jesus says don’t do that, don’t repeat your prayers

• NO!!!

• Jesus is telling us, “Do not babble like the pagans.”

• Why?

• Because Jesus is not condemning the idea of repeating yourself in prayer

• Jesus Himself would have prayed the Psalms MULTIPLE TIMES

• That means Jesus would have REPEATED HIMSELF

• In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus said, “Father, let this cup pass from me. But not my will, but your will be done.”

• He says this again and again so Jesus REPEATS HIS PRAYERS

• Jesus is not condemning repetitive prayer

• Jesus is condemning babbling like the pagans “who think that because of their many words, they will be heard.”

• When we are praying, to whom are we talking?

• In those Greco-Roman religions, the gods and goddesses are not good and they do not care about you and they do not love you

• So if you want their blessings, you have to get their attention

• You have to do something of note to get their blessing

• You also might get their curse

• You have to do something remarkable to get their blessing

• You have to babble

• You have to say the right incantation

• You have to jump on one foot and spin in a circle or something like that

• There are even religions in some places of the world that say if you want to get the god’s attention, you have to actually hurt yourself

• Let your own blood be spilled in order to get the gods’ attention

• Jesus is saying, “When you pray, realize who you are talking to. You are not talking to a god who you need to fight for their attention. When you pray, simply say, ‘Our Father.’”

• When we pray the Our Father and realize who God truly is, then we will realize that God has been battling for OUR attention THIS WHOLE TIME

• Your WHOLE LIFE God has been fighting for your attention

• How shallow and selfish we are

• God needs nothing

• BUT…

• It matters to Him that we have that gentle glance toward Heaven

• It matters to Him that we turn to Him

• It matters to Him when we give Him our attention

• WHEN YOU PRAY SIMPLY SAY, “OUR FATHER…”

• The moment you pray, “Our Father,” you realize that He is ALREADY LOOKING AT YOU

• YOU ALREADY HAVE HIS ATTENTION!!

• YOU DO NOT HAVE TO FIGHT FOR HIS ATTENTION!!

• HE has been fighting for YOUR attention

• YOU DO NOT NEED TO BLEED TO GET HIS ATTENTION!!

• In Jesus Christ, God has BLED to get OUR attention

• God has BLED to get OUR hearts

• That is why the very heart of “Our Father…” is the identity of God

• Paragraph 2779 says, “Before we make our own this first exclamation of the Lord’s Prayer, we must humbly cleanse our hearts of certain false images drawn ‘from this world.’ Humility makes us recognize that ‘no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him,’ that is, ‘to little children.’ The purification of our hearts has to do with paternal or maternal images, stemming from our personal and cultural history, and influencing our relationship with God. God our Father transcends the categories of the created world. To impose our own ideas in this area ‘upon him’ would be to fabricate idols to adore or pull down. To pray to the Father is to enter into his mystery as he is and as the Son has revealed him to us. The expression God the Father had never been revealed to anyone. When Moses himself asked God who he was, he heard another name. The Father’s name has been revealed to us in the Son, for the name ‘Son’ implies the new name ‘Father.’”

• Let’s listen to Fr. Mike talk about people who have difficult relationships with their own dads…

• You may have even had an incredible dad that gave you everything you ever wanted

• AND YET…

• God the Father is a truly good Dad who does not give us everything we want

• HE ONLY GIVES US WHAT WE NEED!!

• HE ONLY GIVES US WHAT IS ACTUALLY ULTIMATELY GOOD FOR US!!

• We can make a false idol of God that we lift up if we think God is going to be like our dad who gave us everything we wanted

• We can make a false idol of God that we pull down if we think that God is going to be like our own cruel father

• ASK THE LORD TO TEACH YOU TO PRAY!!

• ASK THE HOLY SPIRIT TO TEACH YOU TO PRAY!!

• BECAUSE WE DO NOT KNOW HOW TO PRAY AS WE OUGHT!!

• “Come, Holy Spirit, and help me to know the Father as He truly is. Help me to know who He really really is as opposed to my false idol I want to adore or the false idol that I want to reject. Let me know who the true God is so that I can love Him and that I truly adore Him and belong to Him.”

• THAT IS THE KEY!!

• Let’s repeat Paragraph 2784 again, shall we? Because WHY NOT??? 😉

• Paragraph 2784 says, “The free gift of adoption requires on our part continual conversion and new life. Praying to our Father should develop in us two fundamental dispositions: First, the desire to become like him: though created in his image, we are restored to his likeness by grace; and we must respond to this grace. We must remember…and know that when we call God ‘our Father’ we ought to behave as sons of God. You cannot call the God of all kindness your Father if you preserve a cruel and inhuman heart; for in this case you no longer have in you the marks of the heavenly Father’s kindness. We must contemplate the beauty of the Father without ceasing and adorn our own souls accordingly.”

• We want to love what God loves and hate what God hates

• We want to have the heart of the Father

• We want to know the heart of Jesus

• That is what we desire

• Now let’s go on and repeat Paragraph 2785 again…might as well!!! 😉

• Paragraph 2785 says, “Second, a humble and trusting heart that enables us ‘to turn and become like children’: for it is to ‘little children’ that the Father is revealed. [The prayer is accomplished] by the contemplation of God alone, and by the warmth of love, through which the soul, molded and directed to love him, speaks very familiarly to God as to its own Father with special devotion. Our Father: at this name love is around in us…and the confidence of obtaining what we are about to ask…What would he not give to his children who ask, since he has already granted them the gift of being his children?”

• The number one thing after we have persevering love and humility and this trusting heart trust in the Father that He is a good Dad

• That He loves us

• He is a real Dad

• He is a true Father

• So we want to be like Him

• I want to be like my Dad

• Even my dad on earth wants to be like our mutual Father in Heaven

• In order to have the desire to become like our Father in Heaven, we need this humble and trusting heart that is willing to say the truth and also to trust

• We have to have that truth in all of our prayers

• The honest truth like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane

• “Father, let this cup pass from me. Yet not my will, but your will be done.”

• We need the HONEST TRUTH

• We also need TRUST

• WE NEED BOTH!!

• This is EVERYTHING to realize that God TRULY is your Father by Faith and by Baptism and by the giving of the Holy Spirit

• That truth can change a life

• That truth can change eternity

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

• Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!

• Just dilly dallying along now…