Tuesday, June 2, 2015
Youcat commented through CCC. Question n. 37 – Part IV.
(Youcat answer - repeated) We revere God as Father first
of all because he is the Creator and cares lovingly for his creatures. Jesus,
the Son of God, has taught us, furthermore, to regard his Father as our Father
and to address him as “our Father”.
A deepening through
CCC
(CCC 522) The coming of God's Son to earth is an event of
such immensity that God willed to prepare for it over centuries. He makes
everything converge on Christ: all the rituals and sacrifices, figures and
symbols of the "First Covenant" (Heb 9:15). He announces him through
the mouths of the prophets who succeeded one another in Israel. Moreover, he
awakens in the hearts of the pagans a dim expectation of this coming. (CCC 521)
Christ enables us to live in him all
that he himself lived, and he lives it in
us. "By his Incarnation, he, the Son of God, has in a certain way
united himself with each man" (GS 22 § 2). We are called only to become
one with him, for he enables us as the members of his Body to share in what he
lived for us in his flesh as our model: We must continue to accomplish in
ourselves the stages of Jesus' life and his mysteries and often to beg him to
perfect and realize them in us and in his whole Church…. For it is the plan of
the Son of God to make us and the whole Church partake in his mysteries and to
extend them to and continue them in us and in his whole Church. This is his
plan for fulfilling his mysteries in us (St. John Eudes: LH, Week 33, Friday, OR).
Reflecting and meditating
(Youcat comment)
Several pre-Christian religions had the
divine title “Father”. Even before Jesus, the Israelites addressed God as their
Father (Deut 32:6; Mal 2:10), realizing that he is also like a mother (Is
66:13). In human experience, father and mother stand for origin and authority,
for what is protective and supportive. Jesus Christ shows us what God the
Father is really like: “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9). In
the parable of the prodigal son, Jesus addresses the most profound human
longings for a merciful father.
(CCC Comment)
(CCC 523) St. John the
Baptist is the Lord's immediate precursor or forerunner, sent to prepare
his way (cf. Acts 13:24; Mt 3:3). "Prophet of the Most High", John
surpasses all the prophets, of whom he is the last (Lk 1:76; cf. 7:26; Mt
11:13). He inaugurates the Gospel, already from his mother's womb welcomes the
coming of Christ, and rejoices in being "the friend of the
bridegroom", whom he points out as "the Lamb of God, who takes away
the sin of the world" (Jn 1:29; cf. Acts 1:22; Lk 1:41; 16:16; Jn 3:29).
Going before Jesus "in the spirit and power of Elijah", John bears
witness to Christ in his preaching, by his Baptism of conversion, and through
his martyrdom (Lk 1:17; cf. Mk 6:17-29).
(CCC 240) Jesus revealed that God is Father in an unheard-of sense: he is
Father not only in being Creator; he is eternally Father by his relationship to
his only Son who, reciprocally, is Son only in relation to his Father: "No
one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son
and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him“ (Mt 11-27).
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