Beloved Father, this series of meditations is a Novena in Your honour, and is to help men – Your beloved children – to know You more deeply.
It will also serve to fulfil Your wish that the Church will soon establish a liturgical Feast on which You will be honoured as “Father of all Mankind”. You entrusted this desire of Yours to Mother Eugenia Ravasio.
May your wish be accepted and fulfilled by the competent authorities of the Church! You have promised great graces for when this Feast is established. Until then, beloved Father, receive our prayers and the Feast that we will celebrate on August 7th in Your honour, together with all those who also wish to dedicate this day to You, as an expression of our love for You.
Father, You created us in Your image, and it is with sorrow that we have to admit that it has been disfigured by sin. But You want to give us back the “beauty of the first day”. And even more than that!
How will You do it?
We ask You in the attitude of the Virgin Mary, without doubting. Will your answer be similar? Will the Holy Spirit descend upon us, so that Christ may be born within us? Certainly that is how it is, we just need to understand it better!
How will we become, Father, when Your image is further formed in us, and that already in our earthly life?
The best thing will be to look at Your Son, and to assimilate and put into practice all that He said and did. “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father”, the Lord told the Apostle Philip (Jn 14:9).
How wonderful this is!
In Jesus we meet You, our eyes are opened and we begin to see how You are. At the same time, we see in Him how man should be, called to live as the image of God.
Also when we contemplate the Virgin Mary, we see the fullness of Your grace and light. She always fulfilled Your Will!
And we are to become like her.
Also in the saints we find You in a special way, and in them Your light is reflected (cf. Mt 13:43).
Now, Father, I understand it better… We too will be a light, when we are more and more illuminated by You, when day by day we come closer to You and become as You thought us to be! (cf. Eph 5:13-14)
What a marvellous perspective this is: to become a light! In fact, your Son had already told His disciples: “You are light for the world.” (Mt 5:14)
Father, I beg You to remove from me all that is still dark, and to penetrate it with Your light, so that I may truly reflect something of Your glory with my life, and not remain a mere desire.
Then Your light and Your love can also reach people through me, and they will recognise something of You.
Now I know even better why I am here in this world: To be a cause of joy for You and a light for people; a witness of Your love.
What more do I want?
There is something else… I would like to shine very brightly, I would like to see people responding to Your love, so that You can grant them all that You have planned for them. Let me do what is in my power!