Jesus' Awareness of His Unique Relationship to the Father General audience of July 1, 1987

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Jesus' Awareness of His Unique Relationship to
the FatherGeneral audience of July 1, 1987
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•  Jesus' self-revelation as the Son of God is
  given a unique expression in the term
• Abba, Father.
• Abba is an Aramaic word which is preserved in the
  Greek text of Mark's Gospel (1436).
• It appears precisely when Jesus addressed his
  Father.
• Even though this word can be translated into
  every language,
• on the lips of Jesus one can better understand
  its unique meaning.

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• Abba expresses not only the traditional praise of
  God,
• "I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth"
• (cf. Mt 1125),
• but as used by Jesus it also indicates his
  awareness of the unique and exclusive
  relationship that exists between the Father and
  himself.

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• It expresses the same reality to which Jesus
  alludes in such a simple and yet extraordinary
  way in the words preserved for us in the Gospels
  of Matthew (1127) and Luke (1022)
• "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no
  one knows the Father except the Son and any one
  to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."

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• In other words, the term Abba not only manifests
  the mystery of the reciprocal bond between Father
  and Son,
• but summarizes in a certain way the whole truth
  about God's intimate life in the depths of the
  Trinity,
• that mutual knowledge of Father and Son which
  gives rise to the spiration of eternal Love.

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• The word Abba is taken from the vocabulary of
  family life and speaks of the personal communion
  between father and son,
• between the son who loves the father and is in
  turn loved by him.

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• When Jesus used this word to speak of God, his
  hearers must have wondered and even been
  scandalized.
• An Israelite would not have used it even in
  prayer.
• Only one who regarded himself as Son of God in
  the proper sense of the word could have spoken
  thus of him and to him as Father--Abba,
• or my Father, Daddy, Papa!

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• A prophecy fulfilled in messianic times
• A text of Jeremiah speaks of God wanting to be
  called Father,
• "I thought you would call me, 'My Father'"
• (Jer 319).
• It is as it were a prophecy that would be
  fulfilled in messianic times.

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• It was fulfilled and surpassed by Jesus of
  Nazareth in speaking of himself in relation to
  the Father as he who
• "knows the Father,"
• making use of the filial expression Abba.
• He constantly speaks of the Father, and invokes
  the Father as one having the right to address him
  simply with the name
• Abba--my Father.

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• All this was noted by the evangelists.
• Particularly in Mark's Gospel we read that during
  the prayer in Gethsemane Jesus exclaimed,
• "Abba, Father, all things are possible to you
  remove this cup from me yet not what I will, but
  what you will"
• (Mk 1436).

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• The parallel passage in Matthew reads,
• "my Father,"
• that is, Abba, even though the Aramaic word is
  not literally quoted
• (cf. Mt 2639-42).
• Even when the Gospel text says only "Father"
• (as in Lk 2242, and also in another context, in
  Jn 1227),
• the essential meaning is identical.

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• Jesus got his hearers to understand that when he
  used the word "God," and particularly the term
  "Father," he meant
• "Abba--my Father."
• Thus even in his youth when he was barely twelve
  years old, he said to his parents who had sought
  him for three days,
• "Did you not know that I had to be in my Father's
  house?"
• (Lk 249).

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• At the end of his life, in the priestly prayer
  which concludes his mission, he insists in asking
  God,
• "Father, the hour has come glorify your Son that
  the Son may glorify you"
• (Jn 171).
• "Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you
  have given me"
• (Jn 1711).
• "O righteous Father, the world has not known you,
  but I have known you"
• (Jn 1725).

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• Already in foretelling the end of the world, in
  the parable of the last judgment, he appears as
  the one who proclaims,
• "Come, O blessed of my Father"
• (Mt 2534).
• Later, on the cross, his last words were
• "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit"
• (Lk 2346).
• Finally, after the resurrection he told the
  disciples,
• "And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon
  you"
• (Lk 2449).

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• Jesus Christ, who "knows the Father" so
  profoundly, came "to manifest his name to the men
  whom the Father had given him."
• (cf. Jn 176).
• An important moment of this revelation of the
  Father is the reply which he gave to his
  disciples when they asked him,
• "Teach us to pray"
• (cf. Lk 111).
• He then dictated to them the prayer which begins
  with the words "our Father or "Father"
• (Mt 69-13) or (Lk 112-4).

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"To all who received him (that is, to all who
received the Word who became flesh), Jesus gave
power to become children of God" (Jn 112).
Rightly therefore, according to his own
instruction, do they pray, "Our Father."

• Through the revelation of this prayer the
  disciples discover their special participation in
  the divine sonship,
• of which the Apostle John will say in the
  prologue of his Gospel,

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• Jesus however always drew a distinction between
  "my Father" and "your Father."
• Again, after the resurrection he said to Mary
  Magdalene,
• "Go to my brethren and say to them, I am
  ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God
  and your God"
• (Jn 2017).

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• Moreover, it is to be noted that in no passage of
  the Gospel do we read that Jesus recommended his
  disciples to pray with the word Abba.
• That term refers exclusively to his personal
  relation of sonship with the Father.

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• At the same time, however, the Abba of Jesus is
  in reality he who is also "our Father,"
• as is clear from the prayer taught to his
  disciples.
• He is so by our participation or, better still,
• by our adoption,
• as the theologians teach following St. Paul who
  wrote to the Galatians
• "God sent forth his Son...so that we might
  receive adoption as sons"
• (Gal 44-5 cf. Summa Theol., III. q. 23, aa. 1,
  2).

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In this sense we are to understand the subsequent
words of St. Paul in his Letter to the Galatians
"Because we are children, God has sent the
Spirit of his Son into our hearts, saying, 'Abba,
Father!'" (Gal 46),
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• and also what he wrote in his Letter to the
  Romans
• "You did not receive a spirit of slavery...but a
  spirit of adoption through which we cry out,
  'Abba, Father!'"
• (Rom 815).

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• When therefore as adoptive sons
• (adopted in Christ--"sons in the Son," says St.
  Paul--cf. Rom 829)
• we cry out to God
• "Father," "our Father,"
• these words refer to the same God,
• to whom Jesus said with incomparable intimacy
• "Abba...my Father."