Chapter 1 - Our Father, part 1

In the various prayers which Jesus Christ addresses to God in the gospel, He always calls Him by the name of Father. This is because He is His Son by nature, begotten of Him before all worlds. God has adopted all of us in His Son. We are by grace the children of God, therefore the brothers of Christ. Before the mystery of this adoption was accomplished and fully revealed, patriarchs, prophets, and the righteous of the Old Covenant, scarcely employed any other name in speaking of God than that of God or Lord; they spoke of God also by His terrible name Jehovah, and with more fear than love: but, since the gospel was given, we can and ought to call God our Father. Christ authorizes it: He even commands it. This, He says, is how you shall pray: "Our Father who art in heaven." On every occasion He makes use of this expression, "Our Father in heaven;" thus placing us in some way on a level with Himself. He says, "My God and your God, my Father and your Father." Of all names, that of father is most tender and most sweet; it is that which at once inspires respect and submission, love and confidence. These feelings are rooted in our nature, and we should be inhuman if we had no respect for our fathers according to the flesh. How much more just is it, that we should have respect for our Father in heaven, the only sovereign Lord and Master of every creature, infinitely adorable, infinitely good, infinitely lovely! How many titles which may be applied to Him alone! Is He not indeed our Father? From Him we have our being: our souls and bodies, with all their varied qualities, are from Him. He has made us exactly as it has pleased Him, by a perfectly free volition; and having no need of us, being infinitely happy in Himself, yet by His great goodness He preserves us every moment. Our life is a continual gift of His beneficence; and, if He should withdraw His sustaining hand for one instant, we should fall into the nothingness from which He drew us. Can we doubt it, we who are not able to promise ourselves one moment of existence?

How, then, should we not love, how should we not fear to offend, the Author and Preserver of our being, who has not only made us for His glory, but has rendered us capable of promoting it? He has not only given us life, but He sustains it, and supplies every need. The whole universe exists for us only, and is designed for our service. Every thing which renders this earth an agreeable abode, every pleasure we enjoy, is a gift from His hand. He permits us to use all, but requires that we should do so according to His revealed will, and with the gratitude which is his due. Ungrateful and rebellious children that we are, how dare we turn against our Father His own blessings, forgetting Him, abandoning Him for the vile creatures of earth, and grieving Him by our evil ways? Thou didst foresee this, O God, yet Thou hast never ceased the outpouring of Thy bounty. What earthly father would have done like this? It is this excess of Thy goodness that renders me the more guilty. Shall I still continue thus, notwithstanding the reproaches of my conscience, Thy voice within me? Ah! take back Thy gifts, take away even my life, rather than that I should still offend Thee. Thou art my Father by creation, and much more my Father by grace. This temporal life which I enjoy for a brief space is nothing compared with the eternal life for which Thou hast destined me, and which is my true end. What indeed, is that life? It is a life where I shall "see Thee face to face;" where I "shall know Thee as I am known;" where I shall possess Thee, the sovereign good; where I shall share with Thee ineffable bliss. Yes, the heritage Thou hast reserved for me as Thy child is none other than Thyself. My infinitely great reward for having loved Thee on earth, the real and only happiness of my present state, will be to love Thee forever in heaven, and to be filled with this love. I believe this upon Thy word, but I cannot conceive it; and it is essential to my happiness, that it should be so great I cannot possibly comprehend it. This happiness is not only for my soul, but it is also destined for my body, which will participate in its own way in the glorious qualities with which my soul will be adorned. This, O my Father, is what from all eternity Thou hast designed for me. Thou wouldst have withdrawn from me all the evils of this present life, even death itself, had not the disobedience of my first parents placed an obstacle in the way. But this obstacle, insurmountable to all but Thyself, how Thy paternal love has removed it! This incalculable wrong which they have done me, how hast Thou repaired it! Ah! who would have thought it, who would have believed it, if Thou hadst not Thyself revealed it? Thou hast given thine own, thine only Son, in all things equal to thyself. Because Thou didst will it, and He also did will it, He humbled Himself, and was made man, taking our human flesh, that He might suffer and die for the whole human race: for me, in my place, to expiate my sins, to reconcile me to His Father; to give me the privilege of being called the child of God, of which I had become unworthy; to re-establish me in my right of celestial inheritance, of which I had been deprived. Beyond all this is the supernatural life which I receive from Thee by Jesus Christ; those graces and means of salvation which Thou dost lavish upon me; that paternal care and tenderness which Thou dost manifest; that inconceivable goodness, always ready to pardon me when I return to Thee, even after the most grievous sins, a thousand times repeated; that deep, yearning compassion, which leads Thee to run after me when I go astray, to recall me, to extend Thy hand to raise me up again, to carry me in Thine arms, and to rejoice at finding me, as if it were a gain to Thee, as if Thou wert more interested in my salvation than I am myself. If God is so loving a Father towards sinners who sincerely return to Him, as so many illustrious penitents attest, and as we have perhaps experienced ourselves, what must He be toward pure and innocent souls who have kept His grace, and have had no other desire than to please Him? Christian soul, do not limit thyself here to the consideration of general benefits, whether natural or supernatural. Consider, as far as thou canst, all that God has done for thee in particular. There is not one instant of thy life that is not marked by some kind of benevolence on His part, some grace of preservation, of protection, of invitation, of warning, of consolation and encouragement, and of sweet communion.

What has He not done to withdraw thee from evil, and to lead thee to the right, to strengthen thee, and help thee to persevere? He alone knows what He has done for thee. Much of it escaped thy notice at the moment, or has since dropped out of thy memory; and how much secret grace has never even come to thy knowledge! But thou knowest enough to be filled with love and gratitude to God. What would it be if thou hadst always been faithful to the grace received? Who can tell to what thou mightst not have attained? Dost thou owe Him less for the good He would have done, but which for thine own fault He could not do, than for that He has done? If He were to show thee now this chain of graces He had prepared for thee, and the high degree of glory to which they might have raised thee, what would be thy surprise, thy confusion, thy gratitude! Reflect now, and say to thyself, If God is my Father by nature, because He has created me, preserved me, and provided for every need; and by grace, because He has adopted me in his Son, by the union of the divine and the human nature in Him who is the only object of his complaisant regard, so that He sees me and loves me only in Him, and destines me to the same heritage, the same glory, the same felicity; if too, this Father is infinitely lovely, if He unites in Himself all perfection, if He is the sovereign good of every intelligent being; if in short, under whatever aspect I view Him, He has an indisputable right to all the affections of my heart, - why am I so cold, so indifferent, when I utter these words, "Our Father"? How is it that so often they awaken no idea in my mind, and excite no feeling? Ah! it is because I have not meditated profoundly enough upon all that is included in that name of Father; upon the love it implies, and of which God has given me such manifest proofs; upon the law, as gentle as it is just, which commands me to consecrate to Him all my affections, and to desire no other happiness than that of loving Him, for really there is not and can not be any other. I am convinced of it now, by the little I have just read. I should be much more convinced if I should make this inexhaustible theme the common subject of my meditations; if I should incessantly ask God for new light upon it; if I should seek it in the principles of faith, in the mysteries of religion, in the precepts of the gospel, which reduce every thing to the love of our Father in heaven; in works of piety, whose object is to inspire and nourish the love of God; in the examples of the saints, who became such because they loved God with all their mind, with all their heart, and with all their strength. Is He more their Father than mine? Has He done more for them than for me? Did He demand and expect more from them than He does from me? My light upon this great subject would increase much more if I entered more fully into the practice of it; if in my devotions and especially my communions, if in my good works and in the accomplishment of the duties of my position, if in all the commonest acts of life, even such as eating and drinking, I had no other intention, no other aim, than to cherish and increase within me the love I owe to my Father in heaven. Am I here, indeed, for any other purpose than to love Him? Can my happiness on earth, any more than in heaven, be found in aught else than in loving Him? Ah, how foolish and blind I have been! How little I have known and practised the first and greatest of all my duties, that of filial love, of entire and absolute devotion to my Father, of obedience to His holy will, desiring to please Him in every thing, and fearing to offend Him in the smallest thing! Pardon me the past, O most tender and best of fathers! I am resolved by Thy grace to expiate and repair it; to have no other thought, no other design, no other occupation, than to love, obey, and please Thee. As I can do nothing of myself, I give myself to Thee with all the powers of my soul and all the faculties of my body; that all which is mine, and which depends upon myself, may be applied and consecrated to Thy most holy love. Grant me grace that I may never lose sight of this gift that I make to Thee, and that I may never utter the Lord's Prayer without renewing it! This is my intention, O my God! Permit me not to wander from it, nor to revoke it by any sin, or by any involuntary unfaithfulness.

- from The Christian Sanctified by the Lord's Prayer, by Father Jean Nicolas Grou