P. Vojtěch Kodet O.Carm.
(Revised transcript of the sermon at the Holy Mass on the first Saturday of December 1998 in the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Kostelní Vydří.)
Brothers and sisters, a week ago we entered together into the third year of the preparatory phase for the celebration of the great jubilee; and this year is dedicated to God the Father. This is a great opportunity for us. For little is needed by humanity as much as a new experience of God as Father.
The whole world lives in a kind of syndrome of paternal deficiency. Most people of this time have experienced a very painful breakdown of families, a crisis in family relationships, and a lack of what is determined by the father’s relationship to the family, to the child, which also deeply affects the relationship to the heavenly Father. God offers healing medicine to this world. Anyone who knows God as Father can – despite all the negative experiences they had as a child with human fatherhood in this world and which they inadvertently projected onto their relationship with the heavenly Father – experience great healing through this knowledge of God. And thus more deeply understand the meaning of their own life. To find again the taste for life, to find oneself, to find shared responsibility for this world, and to find great hope in God for what lies ahead of us.
Few things in life with God are as distorted as the most basic concepts. Among them is the concept of father. Yet for the Lord Jesus, the relationship with the Father was completely central and defining for his entire life, for his entire ministry and proclamation. As the evangelists testify, he invoked several times in his life that he came to fulfill the will of the Father; that his food is to do the will of the Father. Biblical scholars calculated that the word Father was the most frequently used in Jesus' words; he did not use any other name for God more often than this one. And yet this Father was so hidden and mysterious. Jesus himself said: "No one knows the Father, except the Son and the one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (Mt 11:27).
But we know that Jesus came to reveal the Father. He came to show us his beautiful face. To introduce us into communion with him. In today’s opening prayer, we asked that people be brought again into the knowledge of the Father and experience the greatness of God's sonship. This is, therefore, a unique task that lies ahead of us. A unique chance and grace. God wants to show himself to us again as Father. A loving and merciful Father, a Father who comforts his people and sent his Son for their salvation.
"Comfort, comfort my people – says your God. Speak comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry to her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, for she has received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins" (Isa 40:1–2).
God, who sent his Son Jesus Christ, has decided to put an end to human wickedness. And thus only he can proclaim this great “year of the Lord’s favor” and say: comfort my people, the labor is finished, great mercy has come. The only thing that prevents us from experiencing this Father’s concern and care is our own rejection of God as Father or rejection of his love for us.
People do not know who God the Father is. If they did, they would have to change their lives. The Evangelist John Urban, a great man of this century, wrote that a person is what their idea of God is. Because the nature of "our" God profoundly influences us. If someone thinks that God does not care about them, that God is not present in their life, then they do not experience responsibility for their life. If they experience God as someone who is incomprehensible, then they will never understand their own life. If they perceive God as someone who is absent, they will always think that God does not care about them and that he is not interested at all in anything they are going through. If they see God as someone who punishes, who is only strict and harsh, then they themselves will also be harsh; to themselves and to others.
It is therefore a great responsibility for us Christians, who have accepted faith and recognized Jesus, to first purify in our hearts and minds our idea of the heavenly Father and then to pass on this purified idea. Throughout the year, we will encourage each other with the texts of Scripture to open ourselves to the knowledge of the Father, which significantly influences our lives. We, who have known the Father as the one who calls us to life, as the one who protects us, as the one who always gives us hope, know that nothing is more important than this. However, since the concept of God as Father is very distorted in people, Scripture also uses auxiliary images. One of these auxiliary images is God as shepherd.
"Like a shepherd he tends his flock, he gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young" (Isa 40:11).
In this way, God reveals himself in his care for humanity. Especially to contemporary people, who are so marked by distrust, lack of love, who experience disillusionment in themselves, sometimes a feeling of internal rejection, unappreciation, some form of being marked, humiliation by life or by others, to them this image of a shepherd is very close and important: God as the one who takes us in and leads us; the one who shows us the way; the one who always knows how to get out of every problem; who does not let us get lost, and even – when we stray – takes us back again. Like a shepherd who rejoices greatly when he finds a lost sheep; such is our God, who rejoices at the return of sinners.
With the heavenly Father is also connected a significant testimony about God in the Bible, which is God's mercy. The basic attribute of God, or better said, the attribute of God's love. The main theme of this year associated with God the Father will also be the love of God, the virtue of love as such. Just as last year with the third divine person was thematically associated with the virtue of hope. However, from love, that which makes it divine and beautiful has disappeared. Therefore, it is so important to meditate on love in relation to God: how God loves humanity; and not only that but also how God lives in love within himself in his inner life. This will also be the subject of our sermons and catecheses.
We are aware that what has clouded our relationship with God, what has caused us not to perceive God's love – until many people say they are not loved by God, is our distance from God. Sometimes caused, sometimes uncaused directly. A distance that is due both to original sin and personal sin, as well as to all the painful experiences we have already had in life, all our disappointment with life, disappointment with others, everything that has brought a loss of our trust in humanity, in relationships and in what lies ahead of us.
That is exactly why the Holy Father urges us to let ourselves be "led into the Father’s house" this year, dedicated to God the Father – through repentance and conversion. To refocus our attention on the Father, not on ourselves. Conversion begins where a person stops "spinning" around themselves and begins to consistently, honestly engage with the one who invites them to life, who gave them life, who invites them into his house – God himself. Despite all the difficulties and worries that life brings, we will continually direct our attention to him and ask him to reveal himself to us. To ask Jesus to show us the Father’s face, to ask the Holy Spirit to purify our ideas. And to ask the Father to envelop us in his mercy.
It is remarkable that God in Scripture also appears as a Father with maternal traits. In the prophecy of Isaiah, we read that if a mother should forget her child, the Lord will not forget us. We read of him as one who continually shows compassion. And whose love is more tender than a mother's love. It is a great mystery: God is a Father who also manifests himself to us as a mother. It is precisely through the word mercy, compassion that we can better understand this, as in the original language of the Scriptures of the Old Testament, the term for compassion has the same root as "maternal womb." To the Father therefore belong both the maternal womb and the paternal embrace. If we need our Father to hold us firmly and also need to nestle close to find compassion, then we know that no one in this world can support us more than he can. Our Father with the maternal womb. A Father who can always pull us to his chest, who can open his arms, just like the father in Jesus' parable of the prodigal son.
Let us therefore allow ourselves to be led on this journey to the Father’s house. Let us not be afraid of repentance, for repentance is the path of our cleansing to joy. Repentance is the path, at the end of which stands the great joy of return, where a person finds themselves again, a new meaning for their life journey, and the true joy that is hidden at the bottom of their heart.
Let us therefore ask God to shine upon us again as the one who shows mercy. As the one who is always first in love for us, who will never stop loving us because we are his. Who cannot do anything but show mercy, for he redeemed us with the blood of his Son. Throughout this year we will touch upon all these things. What lies ahead of us is beautiful and great. It would be good for us to express to the heavenly Father each day – at least with a simple sentence – our desire to know him, our desire to renew trust in his love, our desire to anew experience his mercy. And I believe that he will not let us down.
