The Father’s Love, Beginning to End

Love is a terribly difficult word to nail down (except on Good Friday) and I have found that a relationship with God the Father shares that quality. In my spiritual life, I was graced to notice that I have not made much effort to develop a relationship with the Father. To say that God the Father loves us carries different meanings for different people. It is easy enough to say it and to point vaguely to Scriptures that, yes, it is simply obvious. Here is the best effort I can make to investigate aspects of the Father’s love and how it moves from the conceptual realm to our everyday lives.

Love Expressed in Creation

Everything traces its beginning to the love of God the Father. St. John Paul II quotes St. Thomas Aquinas in this teaching, noting that God wants to pour Himself out:

As an infinitely perfect spirit, he is the absolute fullness of Truth and Goodness, and he desires to give himself. Goodness extends itself: bonum est diffusivum sui (Summa Theologiae, I, q. 5, a. 4, ad. 2)-General audience of 9/18/1985

The created world reflects the Father’s goodness, beauty, might, brilliance, and grandeur. Our planet is a masterpiece. God the Father “formed the earth and made it, he established it; he did not create it a chaos, he formed it to be inhabited!” (Isaiah 45:18) We do not live in a utilitarian dwelling. Rather, we live in a world of breathtaking sunrises and sunsets, mountains, waterfalls, oceans, and creatures of all kinds. The wonder of the created universe only makes sense as a creation of love.

“For God with unspeakable loving-kindness deigned to be called the Father of men — He in heaven, they on earth — and He the Maker of Eternity, they made in time — He who holds the earth in the hollow of His hand, they upon the earth as grasshoppers.” -St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture #7, “The Father”

Love Expressed in Jesus

The love of the Father continued to be diffusive beyond the creation of the earth.  Humanity rejected a covenant with God and strayed from Him, yet the Father sent patriarchs, prophets, and kings in an attempt to win back the hearts of men and women. No matter how deep the contrition on the part of God’s chosen people, the abyss of sin could not be bridged by human efforts alone. “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world” (Hebrews 1:1-2, RSVCE).

Here the Father’s love plumbs a new depth: the sending of Jesus. The infinite Divine Son became finite for our sake. What began in the Incarnation had its goal at Calvary, showing us the love of the Father. That love which, in its essence, is self-gift and self-sacrifice.

All throughout, Jesus spoke frequently about the Father. Jesus’ syllabus for the gospel could have been a single sentence: “all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15, RSVCE). When the apostles asked that Jesus teach them to pray, Jesus taught them the Our Father. Not ‘my Father’ nor ‘the Father’ nor simply ‘God.’

Love Expressed Directly to Us

The Holy Trinity seeks us out and wishes to be part of our lives. In the case of the Father, the term ‘father’ automatically brings a relationship with it. God’s intimacy extends to each one of us. He speaks very tenderly to Jeremiah the prophet:

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5)

The Father created humanity out of love and even in His image and likeness (Genesis 1:26) but the connection of love was not meant to be corporate. That is, the love that the Father bestows on us is a personal blessing. Jesus did not die on the cross to save humanity in general; He died on the cross to extend the offer of salvation to every human being that ever lived.

The Heavy Lifting: Accepting the Father’s Love

The “sheer, gratuitous love” of the Father is the beginning and end of all things (Catechism of the Catholic Church #218), revealed by Jesus, and our origin and destiny. Those are important theological truths, but they can only take us so far.

To take the hardest step in our relationship with God: accepting the Father’s love for us. If we get this point right in our spiritual lives, the other pieces fall in order. Without this in place, our struggles in spiritual life will be far more arduous.

It is our identity as a beloved son or beloved daughter that gives us our dignity. If we base our identity on anything worldly, we will at some point fall flat on our face. Nothing worldly can give us the dignity that God the Father did in creating us.

Why is it so difficult? It looks so irritatingly simple, and this is one of the hardest movements of the heart. Concupiscence gets in our way, tragedy strikes, and sin wounds. One of the most fatal mistakes of the Catholic Church in the post-conciliar era has been to explain away sin as nothing, deny the spiritual effects of sin, and worst of all, celebrate it. Drinking poison with a blindfold on does not erase its effects!

Besides injuring our relationship with the Father and poisoning the Body of Christ, we cannot forget that the devil pounces on our sins and weaknesses. He piles up as many obstacles and lies as he can in order to keep us from the Father. More than anything, we need the healing of God.

What Next?

With an identity based on the Father’s love, the Scriptures provide guidance to the next steps. Jesus instructs us to eat His flesh in order to have life (John 6:53-59), keep His commandments (John 15:10), love one another as He loved us (John 15:12), and preach and baptize (Matthew 28:18-20). He sent us the Holy Spirit, which we receive sacramentally and also through prayer. In order to heal us, Jesus gave His Church divine authority to forgive sins (John 20:23).

In other words, Jesus gave us everything that the Father gave Him. This relationship we have with the Father is meant to be the same way coming from us: giving Him everything. The Father runs out to meet us, robe, ring, and sandals in hand, ready to welcome us.

I want to recommend a tremendously helpful podcast: Restoring the Glory, with Bob Schucts and Jake Khym. Both are Catholic therapists who integrate the Catholic faith, spiritual healing, and their professional expertise into a single conversation. This article is indebted to them after listening to their thought-provoking conversations and I am very grateful.