Pilgrimage to the Father
By Father Brendan Williams
Our Holy Father offers us a vision and focus in this Year of God the Father. We are to contemplate our Christian journey as "a pilgrimage to the house of the Father" (par. 49). We are to reflect on His unconditional love in a special way as it is lavished on the "prodigal son." He tells us that the progression of the pilgrimage begins in the human heart of each person. It then expands to the believing community and beyond to the whole human family (par. 49).
The story of the prodigal son (Lk. 15:11-32) is surely one of the most heart-warming and compassionate teachings of Jesus in the Gospels. When we conduct a Reconciliation Service for our children here in the parish we usually place the image of the father, warmly embracing the sinful son, on the cover of the booklet. I always ask the children to look at the image and allow its message to sink in since this message is at the heart of the Gospel and wonderfully summarizes the most essential goal of Christian life: to find ourselves plunged into the bosom of the Father and finding our ultimate rest in His heart.
The yearning of the human heart for the Father's embrace has expressed itself in nefarious ways down through human history. The multiplicity of deities reveals the spiritual longing and hunger that is inherent to the human spirit as it cries out for union with its creator.
Finally, God began to reveal Himself to the Israelites, our fathers in faith. He revealed Himself as a faithful God and entered into covenant with His children, promising under oath that He would be their God and they would be this people (see Lev. 26:12). We see these solemn promises repeated time and time again by God, such as to Abraham, Moses and David.
In this ongoing revelation God showed Himself to be a loving, caring provider for His children: "He sustained him in a desert land, in a howling wilderness waste; he shielded him, cared for him, guarded him as the apple of his eye.
As an eagle stirs up its nest, and hovers over its young; as it spreads its wings, takes them up, and bears them aloft on its pinions.." Deut 32:10-11). God reminds his people through Isaiah that the instinct of maternal tenderness is but a reflection of His infinite and eternal parenting: "Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.
See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me" (Is 49:15-16). How intimate, how endearing, how comforting, how reassuring, how encouraging, are these words!
In all of these loving revelations in word and action in the Old Testament, our heavenly Father is preparing the way for the ultimate act of love that would unfold in Jesus. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life (Jn 3:16). Jesus came in loving obedience to his Father to reveal the mystery hidden from the ages (Col 1: 26-27). In St. Luke's Gospel Jesus' first and last words concern his Father. In the Temple he reminds his parents of his mission: "Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" (Lk 2:49). On the cross his final act was one of loving self-surrender that completed his mission on earth: "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit" (Lk 23:46).
Jesus came as the Good Shepherd who would seek out and find those who were lost and through His cross and resurrection lead them home to the Father. "Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it (on) the last day" (Jn 6:38-39).
Jesus tells us that only through him can we come to the Father (Jn 14:6), yet he assures us that no one comes to him unless the Father draws them (Jn 6:44). Let us meditate on this scene then: Our Father's love, acting like a powerful magnetic force, is drawing us to Himself through Jesus our Risen Savior. The force of love is the Holy Spirit whom our Father desires to give to those who ask: "What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the holy Spirit to those who ask him?" (Lk11:11-13).
Surely this is the most welcome news to us whose traditional attitude to our Heavenly Father has been one of distance, mistrust, and misplaced fear. How comforting to know that His fatherly heart is yearning to transform us in His love through the Holy Spirit and prepare us for an eternity of bliss in the bosom of the Holy Trinity.
The Year of God the Father is a time of grace to imbibe anew this wonderful message of our Father's love. It is especially urgent that we become witnesses to this love in a culture and a world where fatherless families are on the rise and poor father relationships have had profound negative effects both emotionally and spiritually in the lives of so many.
A recent study on family life by Cynthia Harper of the University of Pennsylvania and Sara McLanahan of Princeton examined a group of teenage boys and followed their progress over a fifteen-year period. Of the boys who were living in families headed by mothers, 13% were incarcerated by their early thirties. However, boys with father-headed homes had only a 5% rate. Boys living in stepfather homes increased the odds of being incarcerated by almost threefold. In the men-bashing, father-bashing culture of extreme feminism and other groups that get so much media attention these days, studies such as this one are important. They reinforce what we already know about the importance of a healthy nuclear family. If the place of our human parenting is so important, it is because God our Father designed it so. But don't look to your family TV shows for help in reinforcing the positive values of good fathering.
A recent study by the National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI) points out that only 15 prime-time shows - or 15% of the 102 available on the networks - have fathers as central characters. This is rightly a cause for concern since 25 million children are growing up without their biological fathers in the home. The NFI study shows that not only are fathers mostly absent in prime time programming, when they do appear they are third-rate caliber. NFI concludes that only four of the fifteen shows with fathers are positive characterizations, that is, they are involved with their children, offer moral support, are competent as fathers and make the family their priority. It is also interesting to note that no prime time shows on Saturday night had a father figure, even though that was the most likely time that the whole family would watch TV together.
Where human parenting is anointed and blessed by God it will reflect His perfect, eternal parenting. It becomes our Father's love incarnate and provides a grace-filled steppingstone for the child to enter into an intimate spiritual journey in the arms of God our Father. Other research bears this out. If both parents go to Church regularly, 79% of their children remain faithful to God. If only the Mom goes, only 15% tend to keep the faith. But if only the Dad attends, the percentage rises dramatically to 50%. What a difference a good father makes.
The story of St. Thérèse of Lisieux is a wonderful example of a saintly, loving father's role in leading his beloved daughter on a pilgrimage of profound spiritual intimacy with her Heavenly Father. In her unique and splendid simplicity, St. Thérèse would describe her prayer as closing her eyes, picturing herself climbing up on God the Father's lap, cuddling up and falling asleep in His arms. Here in brilliant imagery is presented to us a spiritual journey that scaled heights reached only by the few.
As we continue our pilgrimage to our Father this year, let us pray for the anointing of the Holy Spirit to be the Fire and Light that unites us as family and reveals all the more intensely and clearly our Father's paternal love drawing us through Jesus to Himself.
The Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised
Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright (c) 1993 and 1989
by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.. Used
by permission. All rights reserved.