“[Each of us] received a Spirit of adoption, through whom we cry, ‘Abba, Father’.” What St. Paul proclaims is both a great wonder and a great blessing – if we accept and embrace it.
In baptism, each of us received the gift of the Holy Spirit. Those who receive the sacrament of confirmation are invited into a deeper relationship with the Spirit so as to strengthen their fidelity to God and to the ways of God. It is through the Spirit of God that we receive in baptism that we are brought into relationship with Jesus Christ through whom we become the adopted sons and daughters of God, our Father. How wonderful it is that God wants each of us to be God’s son or God’s daughter! God is the ideal parent whose love is unconditional, whose love is forever faithful, and whose love is without limits. When we truly appreciate that our God has a personal, individual love for each one of us that reflects the love that an ideal parent has for his or her child, then with confidence, with joy, and with need, we cry out, “Abba, daddy, Father.” We cry out, “Mama, Mother.” God is the ideal parent to whom we can turn with absolute confidence in God’s love for us and God’s abiding presence with us.
Do we want a father? Do we want a mother? As adult Christians, we can chafe at the idea that we are in relationship to God as a child is in relationship to the ideal parent. To accept such a relationship is to accept that the wisdom of God is greater than our own and therefore we must shape our lives by that wisdom in order to achieve the spiritual maturity that our parent desires for us. To accept such a relationship is to admit that we have the need for the love, reassurance, and acceptance that only a loving parent can offer us. To accept such a relationship is to admit that we will always be a child in the eyes of God and to understand that this does not demean us but rather ennobles us as we are children of a God whose love can guide us into eternal life.
Pray today that we might all accept and revel in the truth that we are children of God – sons and daughters of an ideal parent whose love for us can never fail.