Jn 17:1-8
After saying this, Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said: Father, the hour has come: glorify your Son so that your Son may glorify you; so that, just as you have given him power over all humanity, he may give eternal life to all those you have entrusted to him. And eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I have glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do.
Now, Father, glorify me with that glory I had with you before ever the world existed. I have revealed your name to those whom you took from the world to give me. They were yours and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now at last they have recognised that all you have given me comes from you for I have given them the teaching you gave to me, and they have indeed accepted it and know for certain that I came from you, and have believed that it was you who sent me.
Today being the 7th of the month, I have chosen this gospel as the basis for my daily meditation, even though it is not the gospel for today. We dedicate the 7th of each month in a special way to God the Father and we always celebrate a little feast in His honour together with our community and the “Abba’s Family”. The 7th of August, on the other hand, will be His great feast day. The background to this celebration is as follows:
In the year 1932, God the Father appeared to a nun, Sister Eugénie Ravasio, and dictated a message to her which was acknowledged by the local bishop of Grenoble at the time, Mgr Alexandre Caillot. This message has become very dear to us and has greatly deepened our relationship with God the Father. One of the wishes He expresses in this message is that the Church should establish a Liturgical Feast in His honour, celebrating Him as “Father of all humanity” on the 7th of August or the first Sunday of that month. To this day, this has not happened, but we – like other faithful Catholics – have made this feast our own and we also commemorate it on the 7th of each month. That is why I mention it in today’s meditation.
In the following link, you can find the full text of the Message of God the Father to Mother Eugenia Ravasio: https://www.fatherspeaks.net/eugenia_msg.html
From the words Jesus speaks in the Gospel we hear today, we derive a special devotion to God our Father. Everything Jesus said and did comes from the heavenly Father, and the Lord wants us to know and love Him. The Father is Jesus’ great love, and as we learn to know Him, we will understand these His words:
“Eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent”
In the aforementioned Message to Mother Eugenia, almost every page makes it clear to us how important it is that we know, honour and love the Heavenly Father. The essential thing is to recognise Him as our loving Father, who cares for us.
This is the great theme of this booklet, allowing us to take a deep look into the Heart of our Father. It shows us that God is always looking for His children, the human beings, to make them understand His love. We must become receptive to this love, live in it and find in it our true security and our home.
The knowledge of the Father and the Son, in which eternal life consists, is given above all through love. Indeed, love was God’s motivation in creating us, in redeeming us and in wanting to live in eternal communion with us. Love is the link between the three Persons of the Holy Trinity, and we ourselves are called to enter into this intra-Trinitarian love. Thus the Lord says in His Priestly Prayer to the Father: “I have made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and so that I may be in them” (Jn 17:26).
Our Heavenly Father is the goal and Jesus is the way that leads us to Him: “They have recognised that all you have given me comes from you for I have given them the teaching you gave to me, and they have indeed accepted it and know for certain that I came from you”.
Father’s Message to Mother Eugenia, which I highly recommend, has inspired me to write each day, in addition to the daily meditations, a short meditation we call the “3 minutes for Abba”. These meditations are more meditative than instructive and are intended to help us to know the Heavenly Father more deeply. If these meditations serve to increase our love for God and make us more receptive to receive His love, then they would have produced wonderful fruit. You can find them at the following links:
Telegram: https://t.me/threeminutesforAbba
Website: http://en.elijamission.net/category/3-minutes-for-god-the-father/
And if any of you would like to join the “Abba’s Family”, whose members wish to know, honour and love God the Father in a special way, you can register at the following link: https://www.amadopadrecelestial.org/contacto