The Face of Mercy / Daniel Conway

God is tender and loving, not someone to fear

God is not an angry tyrant whom we should fear, Pope Francis teaches. He is a tender, loving Father who invites us to come close to him.

During his general audience at the Vatican on Jan. 9, Pope Francis explained that “Saint Paul’s letters testify that the earliest Christians, guided by the Holy Spirit, prayed using the Aramaic word for ‘father’ that Jesus himself had used: ‘Abba’ (cf. Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6).” This little word, Abba, is a powerful expression of the intimacy and closeness we are invited to feel in our relations with the majestic, all-powerful God. Abba, which the pope says can be translated as “Papa” in Italian or “Daddy” in English, affirms God’s tenderness and his desire to be accessible to us in the most personal ways possible.

“At the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer,” the Holy Father continues, “we hear an echo of the voice of Jesus himself, who teaches the disciples that to pray is to share in his own intimate and trusting relationship with the Father.”

Too often we have been led to think that “fear of the Lord” means being frightened by an angry God. On the contrary, the pope says, God’s infinite love and goodness calms all fears. His mercy makes it possible for us to approach him at any time, and to share with him our deepest thoughts and fears.

All the newness of the Gospel, and the very heart of our prayer as Christians, is in some sense summed up in the one word: “Abba.” Pope Francis invites us to keep this term of loving endearment in our hearts always, but especially when we pray.

Formal prayers such as the Lord’s Prayer, the Hail Mary and other traditional Christian prayers are important because they provide structure and meaning to our experience of prayer. They also make it possible for spontaneous, unstructured prayer to flow from our heart to our lips. When we address our loving Father as Abba, Papa or Daddy, the pope says, we express our closeness to him and our desire to remain one with him in everything we say or do.

A familiar example cited by Pope Francis is the parable of the prodigal son (Lk 15:11-32). While we think of this parable in terms of the younger son who squandered his inheritance, the story Jesus tells concerns this “prodigal” son, his resentful older brother, and their loving father. According to the pope, this parable “shows us most vividly how Jesus wants us to understand our heavenly Father and his infinite love, mercy and forgiveness.”

In fact, the pope teaches, “there is also something maternal about this love of the Father, which accompanies and nurtures the development of our new life in Christ as his adoptive sons and daughters.” The Christian image of God contradicts all false images of God as an angry, abusive and domineering father figure. God is tender and loving. He forgives us our sins—as we forgive those who sin against us.

This does not mean that God is undemanding or that he will not hold us accountable for our words and actions, our sins of commission and omission. Our loving Father remains a just judge who commands us to love him, our neighbor and ourselves just as he has loved us. Obedience to this tender God is not optional. It is demanded of all who would fully embrace him as faithful daughters and sons.

“Even in the most difficult times in our lives,” Pope Francis prays, “may we never be afraid to turn in trust and confidence to the Father, praying in words that Jesus taught us: ‘Abba, Our Father.’ God’s tenderness invites us to come close to him. His sternness, if you will, challenges us to take his commandments seriously and to seek his forgiveness whenever we fail to measure up to his expectations as “adoptive sons and daughters.”

God’s love—his amazing grace—is not something we earn. It is freely given to us by our prodigal Father who allows us to accept or reject him as we choose. In prayer, we can come close to our generous Father. When we call him Abba, Papa or Daddy, we acknowledge our dependence on him. But we also show deference to him, the divine parent who gave us life, who nurtured and formed us and who never interferes with our free decisions, good or bad.

Let’s reach out to him and beg him to give us all that we need (our daily bread) to love God, love our neighbor and love ourselves as Jesus taught us.
 

(Daniel Conway is a member of The Criterion’s editorial committee.) †