GOD´S GREATEST GIFT

What great mercy you had towards us in sending us your Son Jesus! With incomparable love you set your gaze upon us, who so often run away from you or even turn against you, who offend you with our sins or simply forget you. You, on the other hand, are always present and look at us with love. You care attentively for us, because you do not want us to lead a meaningless life, let alone to be lost forever.

Even the Creation that surrounds us sings the hymn of your beauty, and what great delight it can evoke in us as we discover the inexhaustible variety that you have prepared for us! Is it not so that the whole of Creation is offered to us like the table that a loving woman prepares for her loved ones, only more beautiful?

And if the gift of Creation is an immeasurable token of your love, how much more do you give us in Jesus!

And He loves you with all the ardour of His Heart. There is nothing He desires more fervently than to make Your love known to men. There is nothing He desires more ardently than to glorify You and to fulfil Your Will.

In his farewell discourse, raising his eyes to heaven, Jesus testifies: “I have glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do… 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 17:4,26).

In Jesus, you reveal to us in all its fullness your great “yes” to us; a “yes” that accepted suffering for our sake, to glorify you and to redeem us.

In Jesus we recognise you and He leads us to you: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father (…) No one can come to the Father except through me” (Jn 14:9,6).

THE FIRST WORD UPON AWAKENING

When I awake in the morning, You, Father, are already there, and all night You have watched over me. Then You expect me to turn to You and my first word to be consecrated to You, gladly and joyously! But sometimes I forget and let myself be carried away by moods. What a pity!

How important is this first word: the greeting to You! It places me in the truth of being, for who in the order of the redeemed Creation would not greet You?

All the angels and saints, burning in love for You, sing praises to You. The souls of the departed hope in Your mercy, to behold You soon from face to face. And the irrational creatures? They too, by their very existence, proclaim Your praise, for from You they have received life.

The book of Wisdom tells us:
“Whoever gets up early to seek her [the Wisdom], will have no trouble but will find her sitting at the door. Wisdom is brilliant, she never fades. By those who love her, she is readily seen, by those who seek her, she is readily found”. (Wis 6:14,12)

You, Father, are the source of all wisdom. To meditate on You and on Your love is the “perfection of wisdom” (Wis 6:15).

Now I have a new day ahead of me; a day created by You, also for me. Let me live it in such a way that, before nightfall, I can say: “Thank You, Father! This day was a good step to bring me closer to You on the way to eternity. Your wisdom was with me, and helped me and toiled with me (cf. Wis 9:10)”.

THE WORD “FATHER”

THE WORD “FAHTER”

“Father” – what a wonderful word Jesus gave us to make the Eternal God understandable to us.

God is not just invisible or even unreachable for us! We can trust the reports of the Holy Scriptures, which tell us about Him. God wants to be very close to us; and in many ways He wants to make us understand that He loves us and wants to live with us – His children.

This is expressed in the word “Father”, and it is able to speak to our heart in depth. In the word “Father” is expressed a whole YES to us human beings and to our existence. God never takes this back! Even if we reject His love for us, His YES remains over us. It invites us to turn back, to come home, not to close ourselves to His love for time and eternity.

Our Father has spoken this YES to us humans irrevocably in His Son Jesus. In doing so, He calls us out of our remoteness from God and leads us into His closeness.

„For this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (Jn 3:16), Holy Scripture testifies to us. In Jesus He gave us His heart.

The way is now open to the heart of the Father. The Son has taken away all obstacles at the cost of His own life. If we believe in Him and receive forgiveness of our sins the Father’s love can come to us without obstacles and live in the security and joy of the children of God.

What hinders us to follow this invitation? We should set out with confidence! The Father awaits us because He is our Father….