438th Meditation
“How great would be My joy to see parents teaching their children to address Me often by the name of Father, as indeed I am!” (Message of the Father to Sister Eugenia Ravasio).
Here our Father is addressing parents and asking them for the most precious gift they can give Him and their children: to teach them to call the Holy God “Father” and to find their home in the “great family of God”, in communion with the Heavenly Father and with all the saints and angels to which all people are called. What a horizon opens up for the children! What a refuge they experience! They are given a foundation for their lives that will sustain them and keep them firm in times of crisis.
It is a great joy for our Father to see the foundations being laid at a very early age so that the child can know Him and turn to Him with confidence. How delightful it must be for the Father when children, barely able to babble, call Him by the beautiful name of “Father”, open their hearts to Him and captivate Him with that irresistible tenderness which is proper to children!
Perhaps it is sometimes difficult for us to imagine that God could love and delight in us human beings so much. But when we look at children – who can delight us so much when they come to us with that openness and innocence that characterises them – we can get an idea of the love that fills the Heart of the Heavenly Father when He contemplates His creatures. How He longs to fill these dear children of His with His presence!
If parents strive to fulfil this desire of the Heavenly Father, they too will receive their reward. They will see their child being met with a love even deeper than they themselves can give. With gratitude they will see more and more how everything comes from God.
And the most beautiful thing is that they will be accomplishing a great desire of the Heavenly Father and fulfilling their mission as parents.