121st Meditation on God the Father
“If you wish to test the power of this spring about which I am talking, first learn to know Me better and to love Me to the extent that I desire, that is, not only as a Father, but as your Friend and Confidant” (Father’s message to Sr. Eugenia Ravasio).
“O Lord, you search me and know me, you know when I sit, when I rise, you understand my thoughts from afar. You watch when I walk or lie down, you know every detail of my conduct. A word is not yet on my tongue before you, O Lord, know all about it” (Ps 138:1-4).
This is the theme of yesterday’s and today’s meditation: to know God as our Father, friend and confidant, to have access to His innermost being and to drink from the fountain that flows from Him.
By loving God as our confidant, everything in us that is still distant from Him begins to disappear. Then there will no longer be any area in our heart that remains closed to Him. Thus it will not only be God who knows us and to whom all our paths are familiar, as the psalm so eloquently implies, but also on our part nothing will remain closed to His love. The love of our confidant will have become for us a “sacred possession”, which we can avail ourselves of.
Then what is described in Father’s Message will happen: from the open Heart of the Father will flow the water of salvation for His children, “permitting them to draw freely whatever they need for time and for eternity” (Father’s Message to Sr. Eugenia Ravasio).
If we try to imagine what a “confidant in God” would be like, we will certainly think of the beloved disciple, St. John, who leans on the breast of Jesus and even dares to ask Him who is the one who will betray Him (Jn 13:23-25). Here we find a heart so permeated with the love of God that there is no longer a trace of fear left in it: “Love casts out fear” (1 Jn 4:18). John’s confidence is so great that he no longer fears anything. He not only expects good from God; he counts on it.
The Lord invites us to such a close relationship. We must know Him as our confidant and find in Him the certainty of love. God entrusts Himself to us and wants to cultivate this intimate relationship with us. In this way, all that is strange disappears and what is still unknown to us no longer frightens us. We no longer build our security upon material goods, nor on our knowledge or skills; rather, we feel secure in the One who is our confidant.
Thus, God becomes for us a trusted fatherly friend.