Jesus, as a young man of twenty or twenty-five, gradually develops the awareness that God is not, above all, the Inaccessible or the Unnameable, but rather the One he has interacted with since the days he sat on his Mother’s knees.
As he let himself be borne by impulses of intimacy and tenderness toward his Father, Jesus felt something unique that God is a beloved Father, that the Father is not primarily near but Love, that he is not primarily justice but Mercy, that the first commandment does not consist in loving the Father but in letting ourselves he loved by him.
The intimacy between Jesus and Ole Father advanced much further. When Jesus’ trust in his Father released all boundaries and restraints, the word containing the most intense emotion and intimacy sprang from his lips: Abba, beloved Father!
Now, indeed, Jesus could go out along the roads and into the mountains to proclaim the great news that the Father is near, that he sees and loves us. He revealed the Father to us, using beautiful comparisons filled with emotion.
Did his listeners ever see a hungry child who, when it asked its father for a piece of bread, was given a stone on which it would break its teeth? The spring season is bursting forth, flowers are blossoming, birds are building their nests, everything is in splendor, the stars are shining on high. Who gives life and beauty to all this? The Father, who takes care of everything. Are you not perhaps worth more than the birds, the flowers and the stars? Everything is numbered, even the hairs on your head and the steps you take. The Father does not simply watch over these, he takes care of them.
Ask, call, and knock at the door. The door will he opened, you will find what you seek, and receive what you ask. Your only problem consists in letting yourselves be enfolded and loved by the Father. If you knew how much you are loved by Him, if you knew the Father you would never experience sadness or fear. Now, be to others as the Father is to you.
When living the Gospel primarily consists in experiencing the love of the Father, and precisely that of the Father. When this happens, an irrepressible desire rises in our hearts, a desire to treat others as the Father treats us. That experience transforms the “other” into a brother.
The same happened to Jesus: he had an intense experience of the love of the Father when he was young. On the impulsive dynamism of that love, Jesus went out into the world to treat everyone as the Father had treated Him. “As my Father has loved me, so have I loved you.”
This is the program Jesus proposes to us. Here is the revolution, the profound and radical “novelty” of the Gospel. Jesus is the BELOVED SON of the Father. We are his beloved sons and daughters.
And so the unity emerges as a necessity imposed by love, as a vital space from which the energy and the warmth we have stored from the sun of the Father may be spread.
Extracted from the book “Come with me” by P. Ignacio Larrañaga
Imagen: © Depositphotos.com/[Carlosobriganti]
