Whose Children Are We? the Future That Awaits Us: The Prayer of the Our Father and the Christian Roots of Life, Family, and Society

By Stefano Tardani

The book covers the fundamentals of human life and the family, as well as issues pertaining to the social and human sciences, seen in the light of Christian values. Christianity has something great and precious to offer everyone, both Christians and non-Christians alike. This, we must recover and discover anew, and make known through a new evangelization. The words of the Prayer of Our Father contain the blueprint for our life and survival: the knowledge and beauty not only of being human, but of the family, and of the way of living in society. This is definitely a new and different book, teaching about the meaning and the sense of life; a precious tool for the formation and pastoral care of young people and families towards a rediscovery of Faith and of the dignity of human life. Translations into another 9 languages for forthcoming publication.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Aug 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512745887

Stefano Tardani

Born in Rome in 1951, Fr. Stefano Tardani is a priest in the Diocese of Rome. Holding two post-graduate degrees in Moral and Dogmatic Theology, he has enthusiastically carried out studies both in the human and natural sciences. Rector of the Church of Saint Thomas, he has founded the Movement of Family Love to carry out pastoral work aimed at families. In 2003, The Association Famiglia Piccola Chiesa - Movimento dell’Amore Familiare (Family Little Church of the Movement of Family Love) was given official recognition by Diocesan Decree. Fr. Stefano has run television programmes, has taken part in TV shows, and has released interviews to the press. In 2012, he wrote the book: Figli di chi? Quale futuro ci aspetta (Ancora Editrice). In 2014, he spoke at a ProLife World Congress presenting a paper on the importance of the reality of the Spirit for human life and the development of society, and took part in the Catholic Media Symposium organized by Alliance Defending Freedom. He is a member of the International Children's Rights Institute based in Los Angeles (www.internationalchildrensrights.com).

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Copyright © 2016 Stefano Tardani.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Original Italian Edition

Figli di chi? Quale futuro ci aspetta

© Àncora, Milano

Author: Stefano Tardani

Translated by: Raffaela Merlini

Editorial support: Denise Biscossi, Susanna Ciriello, Maria Francesca Rescio

Scripture quotations marked NJB are from The New Jerusalem Bible, copyright © 1985 by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd. and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. Reprinted by Permission.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-4589-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-4588-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016909799

WestBow Press rev. date: 08/29/2016

Contents

Preface

Introduction

1 Father

2 Our Father

3 Who art in heaven

4 Hallowed be thy name

5 Thy Kingdom come (I)

6 Thy Kingdom come (II)

7 Thy will be done

8 On earth as it is in heaven (I)

9 On earth as it is in heaven (II)

10 Give us this day our daily bread

11 And forgive us our trespasses

12 As we forgive those who trespass against us

13 And lead us not into temptation (I)

14 And lead us not into temptation (II)

15 But deliver us from evil (I)

16 But deliver us from evil (II)

17 Betrayal

Conclusion

Appendix Magisterium Texts

Bibliography

Who is wise enough to understand these things?

Who is intelligent enough to know them?

Straight are the paths of the LORD,

the just walk in them,

but sinners stumble in them.

Bible. Hosea 14:10

Preface

The economic and financial crisis that is sweeping the world, particularly in highly-developed countries, forces us all to sit up and take note that we are coming to the end of an era, the easy era of low cost happiness, a marketable happiness without principles, ideals and values. Happiness is viewed as the fulfilment of every whim or desire, a right and a pleasure never to be denied. In the frantic search for this happiness, often illusory, the culture of manic consumerism has brought in its wake a sense of frustration that has driven many – often young people without values – to flee to artificial paradises which turn out to be a real hell of sadness and death. Drugs and violence, to name just a few examples, are symptoms and not causes of the widespread malaise among young people. If one tries to understand more, if one examines this satiated and dissatisfied postmodern society in depth, one senses a growing restlessness and vacuum in the soul of many. People have everything, yet it is not enough! People are sad! Why? What is missing?

If one wishes to be an honest and attentive listener to the cry of life rising up from the present generation¸ it is not enough to be satisfied with a purely superficial analysis of the crisis marking the family today, by now almost dismantled by a concentric attack on all sides. It is not enough just to find fault with the decline of institutions that seem to have lost any connection with the wealth of our heritage of values; one cannot passively stand back and watch the virtual suicide of our traditions that have made the Christian West, especially our country, Italy, a beacon of civilization and far-sighted spirituality. There is a general crisis, the crisis of Western civilization.

Is everything going wrong? Are we on the verge of a global catastrophe made more evident by extensive telecommunication and information networks enveloping the globe? It is right to wonder but not to let ourselves become pessimistic in an atmosphere of indifference and resignation. This is both dangerous and useless. Even if everything seems to be falling apart, we should not give up. Indeed, this is the time to rise to the challenge and, through hope, give renewed stimulus to those who risk drowning in a stormy sea. But in order to hope it is necessary to turn to the source, to start afresh from the ‘certainties’ of life, and to rediscover the ever ancient and ever present news that dwells within the heart of man, within every human person. This is the time when hope must be dared, when it must be pursued, boldly and consciously, by those who are prepared to stake everything so as not to be lost. It is up to everyone who feels within them this desire for life to strive to build a new humanity before the silver thread snaps, or the golden bowl is cracked, or the pitcher shattered at the fountain, or the pulley broken at the well-head (Qo 12:6).

Whoever takes up this book by Don Stefano Tardani with its catchy title, Whose Children Are We? The future that awaits us is plunged into the whys and wherefores, and the hardships of our time, and must allow themselves to be led to wonder about the most intimate and radical reasons for the humanitarian defeat that many are now bitterly forced to acknowledge. Humanity is adrift like a boat tossed in the ocean of history without a sound rudder and an experienced helmsman. Consciously and often recklessly, our generation, but also the previous one, have gradually rejected the embrace of God, arrogantly seeking to create a human brotherhood without Him. However, this denial of God, this crisis of authority, and the ideological rejection of any form of rules, have produced a generation of lost and frightened children, ill at ease, just like ‘sheep without a shepherd’. However, not everything is lost. Indeed, the current crisis is a useful and providential opportunity to start afresh, to be reborn and build new prospects for life and progress. Without God man is lost. With Him nothing is impossible. Don Stefano correctly points out: It is in a sincere relationship with God that there grows a sense of good and the true meaning of life.

In the pages of this volume, the attentive reader will examine with the enthusiasm and curiosity that is characteristic of anyone who allows himself to become engrossed in the plot of a novel, the human and spiritual path traced by the author that enters the self and enables it to open up to the ‘you’ with whom we are constantly called upon to relate. The reader will note, as he makes his way through this book, an invitation and inducement to assume responsibility to build, together with any person of good will, a society that has as its horizon of action the common good and happiness of all. In fact, the construction of the family and social ‘we’ presupposes awareness and desire for good that we can rediscover.

How? What then is the secret? To fully enjoy our existence, we cannot rule out God. Indeed, constant contact with Him should be maintained. It is necessary to learn to pray. How topical is prayer! It is in prayer – observes Don Stefano – that our love for God and for humanity grows. Jesus taught the apostles to pray, He prayed with them. In the prayer par excellence – the Pater Noster – He taught them to call God by the name of Father. In this prayer, we find the summary and framework for any other way of praying. It is a prayer that embraces life and moulds the heart to filial tenderness. This is the reason that the Our Father has become the school of life for every Christian community. Today more than ever, it is a prayer to be rediscovered and translated into life.

In this book, Don Stefano, gathering the fruit of his pastoral and catechesis experience with engaged couples and families, traces a formative path modelled on the Our Father. In my view this is a particularly effective choice. Browsing through these pages we can see the intermingling of doctrine and experience, the Word of God and human research, perennial Church teaching (especially the Magisterium of Papal teaching subsequent to Vatican Council II, and in particular that of John Paul II and Benedict XVI) and the findings of science that investigates the secrets of the human soul. Each invocation of the Our Father is a gradual and further deepening of self-discovery – knowledge of self – in search of the truth of good. What has been experienced in years of serious pastoral work within the Movimento dell’Amore Familiare (Movement of Family Love), Don Stefano presents here in a systematic manner for the benefit of everyone.

This is a useful journey, and is especially recommended for families, the vital cells of society that make up the mystical body of the Church. A path of formation, but also a concrete proposal for the sanctity of everyone. Whoever claims to be a non-believer or considers himself to be distant from the practice of the faith will not feel excluded from the blueprint for life that this book presents. Rediscovering the Christian roots of our society is useful to all those who are part of a world that has been formed in two millennia by the rich cultural and spiritual heritage of the Gospel.

No tree can continue to live and produce fruit if it is detached from its roots. The author’s purpose is to show us that the prayer of the Our Father helps us to return to our roots and therefore enables us to build the future with renewed hope.

Thanks are due to the author and his staff for having prepared this text which I gladly recommend to priests and educators, parents and teachers, as well as to young people looking for the real meaning of their existence. In this text the truth of the Gospel, illuminated by the Teaching of the Church and the testimonies of the Saints, is presented and gathered together in seventeen chapters, the result of studies and experience using an anthropological research method. Here one can note something very interesting for a new evangelization which involves us all. It is a useful contribution to the deepening of the pastoral plan of the Italian Bishops Conference for this decade dedicated to educating new generations in the faith: ‘Educating to the good life of the Gospel’. The text translated into a number of languages may serve a new evangelization in other countries. The perspective in which we move is clear right from the introduction. "When confusion is rampant – writes Don Stefano – it is truly necessary to take up again the light of Gospel wisdom. The prayer of the Our Father, also known as ‘The Lord’s Prayer’, is truly the summary of the whole Gospel. We then realise that its words actually contain the blueprint for our lives and our survival: the wisdom and beauty not only of the human being and the family but also of the way of life in society". In short, it is necessary to return to God and talk to Him not as a remote and omnipotent creator of our destiny, but as a tender and loving Father. God is Father, our Father.

MGR. GIOVANNI D’ERCOLE

BISHOP OF THE DIOCESE OF ASCOLI PICENO (ITALY)

Introduction

‘In the beginning’, every reality in history is revealed through its manifestation and, with ever greater clarity, through its development. At the ‘start’, for example in the case of a plant seed or even at the beginning of a human embryo life, there is not only the very fact of its existence but inherent too is how it exists and matures.

When human progress and development are undermined by the confusions and contradictions of modern day life, when man sees himself superseded and ‘downgraded’ by the existence of what he has produced, the wisest choice is to return to the ‘beginning’. In this, like the ‘Source’, there lies not only the beginning of life, but also the mystery, the sense of life: it is here that we find the foundation and the roots of human life, the family and society.

And this is exactly what John Paul II taught in many of his catecheses, especially those on human love, which seek to answer the many questions of the world today: "They are asked by single persons, by married and engaged couples, by young people, but also by writers, journalists, politicians, economists, demographers, in sum, by contemporary culture and civilization. I think that among the answers that Christ would give to the people of our times and to their questions, often so impatient, fundamental would still be the one he gave to the Pharisees. In answering these questions, Christ would appeal first of all to the ‘beginning’"¹.

The problem of culture and life today mainly seems to concern the thematics of ‘deep roots’. Regardless of the many groundbreaking initiatives in our postmodern era enabling progress in every field towards new and further boundaries, what is becoming increasingly clear to everyone is the ‘inconsistency’ of this ‘tower’, this ‘power’ of the city of man, this kind of giant with feet of clay referred to in the Bible². Indeed, even economic empires are collapsing and the very same financial crises are one of the signs of imbalance and inequity in the ‘system’, which as a result of its increasingly global and complex administration risks ‘collapsing’ and backfiring on human life.

Indeed, above all it is the foundation that seems to be missing in much of the culture and vision of life today.

There come to mind the words of the Gospel, when Jesus speaks about the house built on rock, in other words based on true security which is God, and the other house built on sand, i.e. built on opportunism, false security, lies, and foolishness. As Jesus says in the Gospel: And everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. And it collapsed and was completely ruined.³.

Today we are witnessing the inner ruin of people, families and society. The greatest values have been lost or are in the process of being lost, or worse still, are being transformed. There is no desire to see the roots of life and Christian culture. There is therefore a gradual downward slide into cultural chaos, ‘subculture’ and ‘cultural dictatorship’. We are witnessing a process of rampant relativism, materialism and massive confusion with regard to values. This is reflected in the turmoil of family and social life. On one hand people lament about the lack of meaning of life while on the other hand every effort is made to conceal the true points of reference and tenable certainties. Jesus tells us in the Gospel of the great temptation that, today as ever, pollutes life and culture: ‘mammon’, money, wealth, power and worldly pleasures. Jesus cautions us: You cannot serve God and mammon.⁴.

Owing to increased cultural and economic wealth, knowledge, and human possibilities, the world in its development is turning still more its gaze and heart towards the power and illusory fascination of ‘mammon’. The whole of humanity and each and every individual conscience are constantly having to choose between God and ‘mammon’, between God the Father, on the one hand, and wealth, power and worldly pleasures, on the other.

One wonders, will Christians, together with the many people of good will, succeed in bringing personal and social life back to the paths of God the Father and to the paths of true love, restoring a face of humanity and fraternity to our world? If, indeed, on the one hand the power and number of available means are ever increasing, and on the other the values of conscience and spirit are diminishing, what will become of our lives? And if the ‘power’ to be well off, ‘mammon’, becomes the idol, the direction, and the goal of human existence, substituting the will of God the Father, what will become of our human reality?

In short, in a world that wants to live as though God did not exist, sooner or later man and consequently the family will lose the meaning of life, their truest dignity and deepest values. There will then arise in the human soul a sense of nostalgia, distrust and frustration and finally also one of indifference to everything and everyone, but also an interior suffering, like a void, an absence of well-being, that the satisfactions of the body and the rewards of life cannot fill. This is why Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of man, in the light of the Our Father accompanies us and introduces us to the mystery of human life, its bases and its roots.

These pages on the prayer of the Our Father, which Jesus has taught and given to us, offer the opportunity for a great rediscovery of the mysterious face of God and the precious face of man. It is a journey through the words of the Our Father, explained phrase by phrase. They give us renewed hope and strength, providing us with the light of wisdom, and the truth of life, revealing to us the mystery of God, together with the deepest values of human life and the Christian roots of our life and actions. By the expression ‘Christian roots’ we refer to the deep roots of human life which we define as ‘Christian’ since it is Christ who revealed their truest and most mysterious reality, and it is always He who guides us to them, so that we may find again the fullness of life already here on earth.

One must then ask: what ‘I’ is at the basis of our relationships? Why are they increasingly more complex and less authentic? And why has confusion come about gender identity? What is the basis of the family? What kind of society are we building? These are some of the questions on which the prayer of the Our Father opens up horizons and gives us true and extraordinary answers. It will then be clear why the words of the Our Father act as ‘the compass’ for our life and our existence.

When confusion is rampant, it is truly necessary to take up again the light of Gospel wisdom. The prayer of the Our Father, also known as The Lord’s Prayer⁵, is truly the summary of the whole Gospel⁶. We then realise that its words actually contain the blueprint for our lives and our survival: the wisdom and beauty not only of the human being and the family but also of the way of life in society. The prayer of the Our Father reveals profound wisdom, of which there is so much need today, and that we can only ask of God.

Otherwise man, in search of himself, confused by the ‘new lights’ that dazzle and divert him, so often ends up going off track, being deceived and deceiving. This is what is happening now. Man, in losing sight of God and the mystery of God, also loses himself and his own personal identity; he loses the power to establish, in the truth and love, a family that can withstand the passage of time and, though using all his resources, including technological ones, loses the ability to build a society in which there is true good and well-being for everyone.

These pages are a great opportunity to unearth the answers to the main problems of personal, family and social life. The profound explanation, word after word, of the magnificent prayer that the Lord has taught us, marks out a great path to renew ourselves in mind and heart, and to unearth those answers that we would otherwise never find. Indeed, it was Jesus Christ who delivered and entrusted them to us in the Our Father.

Christianity has something great and valuable to offer everyone, Christians and non-Christians alike. It is up to us to find it again, to rediscover and spread this news through a renewed work of evangelization. It is still the Gospel, but presented in a novel way with a faith that does not disregard but includes the reality of the world. And that is what I am about to do in these pages, trusting in the wisdom of God.

This text was developed from a series of catecheses on The Prayer of the Our Father, held in Rome in 2010: here, transcribed and enlarged, they are offered to the reader in an easy and spontaneous style, maintaining the expressive effectiveness of conversational meditation.

It is necessary to point out that in this text the Prayer of the Our Father may be indicated in italics in its abbreviated form, i.e. Our Father, while Our Father in normal print refers to God the Father. The citations in footnotes are always repeated in full for clarity and convenience.

I have also felt it useful to enclose quotations in three major categories: Bible, Magisterium and Tradition. The word Bible is an easier term with which to refer the reader to the complete books of the Old and New Testament which make up the Holy Scripture.

The term Magisterium refers to the Documents of Papal Teaching, the successor of Peter the Apostle, and of the Bishops in communion with him, without making any further distinction between the ordinary and the extraordinary Magisterium.

Although a distinction should be drawn between the Apostolic Tradition itself and the various ‘traditions’ through which the Apostolic Tradition is expressed, the term Tradition is used here to indicate some particularly significant sources for our discussion, inspired by the Tradition and the Magisterium of the Church: being at the beginning of the citation, they appear with a capital ‘T’.

The quotations from the Holy Scripture are derived from the New American Bible, revised edition (2010).

In writing this book I have considered many texts and references also of other sciences but, given the sensitive and challenging nature of the subject, I have preferred not to specifically mention them, choosing instead to refer to official sources of Christian faith.

The Reader will find in the Appendix an interesting and useful collection of extracts from the Magisterium, especially enlightening for further study.

I wish to extend my grateful thanks to the laity who have contributed to the original Italian edition of this book: in particular, Gabriella Briganti, Alessandro Di Stasio, Laura Lenzi, and all those who have supported its circulation.

I also wish to thank Mgr. Giovanni D’Ercole for his invaluable Preface.

My gratitude goes to the translator of this English edition for producing a very accurate and faithful rendition of the Italian original text, and to those who have generously worked on the French, German, Polish and Spanish translations for forthcoming publication, as well as the Arabic and Chinese ones.

Last but not least, I thank my parents for their example of faith, generous ‘yes’ to the Lord, and love of life, my family, the many families in the Movement, and the many friends with whom I’ve learnt to observe and understand.

To readers I truly hope that these pages will be a gift for their lives.

To all my sincere thanks.

1

Father

If we look around we can see a pluralism of ideas and opinions but also a lot of confusion. We are witnessing a succession of generations that ignore one another, in a discontinuous pursuit of values that eventually cancel one another out. We are witnessing great disillusions, especially in what should be the most stable environment, i.e. the family, the place a priori for affection, the love of man and woman and the blossoming of human life. It is here that the warmth and certainty of being loved, listened to and supported should reign supreme. This, unfortunately, as we know only too well is often not the case. Despite the remarkable progress achieved by human civilization in many fields, it is often difficult to live, and sometimes even to survive. Moreover, the milestones attained run the risk of being nullified.

It is not always easy to listen to a constructive dialogue between husband and wife, and likewise a serious and constructive dialogue of parents with their children. While they are little, dialogue is relatively straightforward, but as children grow up, situations change, particularly when they start going to school and discover friendships, the Internet, social networks, and everything else that follows.

Engaged couples also start off with big dreams and projects, but nonetheless fear that something is going to unexpectedly pop up and undermine their happiness. So, even if couples and families are happy and succeed in various ways to overcome life’s difficulties, there lurks a degree of uncertainty. Lovers, even if they are sure of their love, perceive some ‘voids’ within themselves and harbour great questions. Somehow, these are the nightmares of today’s world. To escape, some lapse into a state of indifference. Once it was not so. Life was more stable and perhaps also simpler.

What is happening? We need to ask ourselves this question if we wish to be members of society, able to carry life forward and deliver it to new generations. What life are we building together? What messages are we handing down to children and young people? What is happening to the family? What is changing in the people around us? One of the things that invites reflection is the figure of the father.

Something is changing. Slow but continuous, this change is also at times rapid and unexpected.

In the Our Father, Jesus gives us secrets as never revealed before. The Our Father can be compared to a flash of lightning, a penetrating light in the darkness of night. Perhaps we are in the habit of saying the prayer of the Our Father. But if we consider the words carefully, and see them in silhouette, we become all the more aware of today’s situation, and we begin to understand many things! Jesus has given us this prayer, indeed He has handed it to us. If we do not want to be completely lost, it is here that we must unearth not only the deep mystery of our life but also our way of life.

Most of the experiences and considerations I am going to describe here are those that I recount every year to engaged and married couples: many have thanked me, even after many years, for their validity and the good that such teachings have brought about in their lives and in their love, many of them have moved closer to the truth, others have undergone a deep conversion to Christianity. Even agnostics and atheists have found their relationship with God. These powerful messages are born of prayer, study, and experience.

So, let us now embark upon this new journey in the prayer and words of the Our Father.

The text of the Our Father is to be found in two Gospels: Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4. The most detailed and complete version is the one in the Gospel of Matthew. This is the text taken from the New American Bible, revised edition (2010):

"This is how you are to pray:

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread;

and forgive us our debts,

as we forgive our debtors;

and do not subject us to the final test,

but deliver us from the evil one".

In the chapters that follow, we will refer to the more traditional and more commonly known wording of this text.

God Abba

This is how you are to pray: Our Father…. Well, perhaps we do not pay much attention but the first word Jesus gave us, in the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts, is ‘Father’. In addressing God with the title ‘Father’, Jesus used a common term but in an entirely new and extraordinary way; nobody would ever have used it or imagined its use in relation to God.

Jesus, in teaching us to turn to God, uses a word nobody would have used towards Almighty God: ‘Abba’. This Aramaic word is an expression of familiarity, used by a child addressing his father, equivalent to our usage of ‘papa’, ‘dad’, and ‘daddy’ today. It is a term of endearment that children use when speaking to or about their fathers.

Therefore, the Jews used this term within the family as an expression of intimacy. In the Old Testament the title of God as Father is used to refer to the people of Israel⁷, as God the Father of the nation, creator of his people through the Alliance. However, the term ‘Father’ is not understood in our personal sense. Children like adults could not call God in a personal way, much less so using an Aramaic term such as ‘Abba’, ‘papa’, completely void of any solemnity! For this reason, addressing God as ‘Father’ could not have been an invention of the disciples or the apostles of Jesus who were Jews; it was not an invention of the Church.

The apostles would never have been able to take such an initiative on their own. In fact, no God-fearing Jew could or would have done so. No one would have given voice to such an expression in relation to God unless God himself had revealed and granted it. Only Jesus, the Son of God, could have expressed himself in this way, revealing God as Father! Moreover, He takes this amazing initiative, placing us within his confidence – his alone – with the You of God, his Father. This fact does not exist in any other religion. This is a fact and a gift revealed by Jesus Christ and brought into the world through the Church. The pagan world with its polytheistic vision could never have invented it.

Thus, in Islam, this word to address God does not exist. Muslims call God Allah. In the Koran there are at least 99 ways to express and to name Allah but the term ‘Father’ is not among them. They include ‘The Creator’, ‘The Lord’, etc. Great and beautiful terms, it is true, but what is missing is the term which Jesus Christ revealed to us, drawing us close to the fatherhood of God, to the point of being able to call on him as ‘Father’.

Nobody could have done something like this. Without Jesus, we would never have been able to really know God the ‘Father’. It is only Jesus who said that God is substantially ‘Father’ in himself. This, as He has revealed to us, is precisely because of his Trinitarian reality. Jesus, throughout his life, continually showed his intimate proximity to the Father⁸. Only Jesus of Nazareth, the Word made flesh, made man in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the work of the Holy Spirit, only Jesus ‘true God and true Man’, has been able to bring this news for us: to reveal the true face of God and bring us into the heart of God the Father so as to call on him as ‘Father’. Knowing the Face of God is the most beautiful and sublime gift that we could have received from Jesus, an enormous gift, changing perspectives and behaviour, leading us to the ‘roots of our life’.

The news that Jesus has brought us is extraordinary and fundamental for humanity. It therefore follows that if it is of such importance, we must begin to understand it well, because here lies the secret, the very secret of Jesus Christ. When, after having profoundly found God, I converted from a superficially lived Christianity to a living Christianity, one of the things that fundamentally struck me was precisely this extraordinary revelation that Jesus has brought to the world. In the Our Father we have the secret of Jesus Christ but we also have the secret of our life. How is it possible to survive on earth? What are we? How do our lives, our relationships, our families, and our society function? Let us be careful. Someone will try to take the Our Father away from us: first hiding and then removing the roots, slowly and in such a way that hardly anyone will notice.

And yet, the word ‘Abba’ is so new and powerful that no one can have the Our Father set aside – as many would like to by sowing seeds of indifference and ignorance. These people make themselves wiser than everyone, while in fact they became fools⁹, and as the Book of Wisdom says, they did not know the hidden counsels of God¹⁰. Indeed, it is only by knowing God’s secrets that we can know our secret. It is only by knowing their parents’ secret that children can understand their own secret.

We may have prayed the Our Father many times but perhaps we have not properly understood its meaning, its import. Many also have their own idea of God, far from the reality with which He has revealed himself, an idea that has been imagined or dictated by negative conditioning, i.e. the wrong idea. God is not just the Creator. Moreover He is neither, as some philosophers say, the ‘Immobile Engine’, nor God ‘Architect’, as understood by the Masons, nor a non-personal generic ‘Divine’, present in us and in the world, as the New Age movement would have us believe in taking up the concept of Buddhism.

Those who have left Christianity, without a deep knowledge of it, sense a ‘fundamental nostalgia’ within them. Indeed, saying that God is Father is much greater than saying anything else. We must not let the gift of God the Father shrink and diminish, since Jesus saw to revealing and giving it to us. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him [on] the last day¹¹. Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ¹².

Why it is so important

All this makes us understand that first and foremost God is Father. But what does this mean? There are two fundamental truths that change our life.

The first concerns God, God is One and certainly the Only One. He, however, is not alone in himself. How can we say that, though subsisting and unique, ‘God is not alone’? For Jews, God is One, and also for us Christians God is One and also for Muslims who call him Allah, God is One. But we know that ‘God is not alone’. In what sense? He is not alone because God is Father. How does one become a father? A man is a father in the same way any woman is a mother because they have a child.

So, the fact that God is Father means that God is Father of the Son, who is the Word, Eternal with him, ‘generated’ by him and likewise God. As the Credo says: God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father¹³. Jesus says in the Gospel: The Father and I are one¹⁴. This is extraordinary: the Son is One with the Father in the communion of Love, in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Power, Truth and Love. And it is to the Holy Spirit, the gift of the Risen Jesus, that Christians turn to so as to have light on the mystery of God¹⁵, as they do when they invoke him with the words of the prayer Veni, Creator Spiritus: Oh, may Thy grace on us bestow the Father and the Son to know; and Thee, through endless times confessed, of both the eternal Spirit blest. God has revealed that He is a Communion of Love. God not only loves, but ‘God is Love’¹⁶: Community of Love. One God in a Communion of Love of three Persons¹⁷. Jesus reveals to man the true face of God and the true face of man¹⁸.

Unearthing the roots of true faith also leads us to unearth the roots to our life. In the mystery of God, Jesus brings us the mystery of life¹⁹ and the mystery of Communion²⁰. This revelation is of extraordinary strength, because it enables us to understand that in God there is the secret we seek both of life and relationships. The couple search for this secret: how to stay together, despite their differences, male and female, each with their own way of being?

Sometimes, alternative behavioural patterns and other ways of being are sought. For many, mass standardisation, i.e. dampening and ironing out differences and contrasts, would seem to be the solution, while others prefer the freedom to multiply the variants of human nature itself as much as possible. In this way, the sense and meaning of human life are twisted. Where the creativity of man seeks to push beyond and overcome any boundary without God, human nature itself will no longer appear to express any rule, neither biological nor moral.

What is forgotten is that God is not only Creator but also Father, and has entrusted mankind with a part of creation to preserve and develop its meaning. He has entrusted this especially to man and woman where, most of all, there is found the ability and responsibility for a free, loving and conscious collaboration with God the Father. It would appear that by culpably ignoring God the Father, any natural order can be subverted and modified at will. But in doing so, nature ends up in chaos and life in madness.

And in society? In the end, we must ask ourselves: what is the sense of globalization? It has within itself at the same time the dynamics of uniformity and those of plurality. To avoid the chaos and the cancer of madness it is necessary to go to the foundations, to the roots of life and, in particular, to the roots of human life. Therefore, for many aspects, the dominant theme of culture has shifted from a social one, which nonetheless remains essential, to that of life and private life, which is crucial. Jesus Christ has in himself the solution to what, for us and for all mankind, is a major problem: the secret of how to be together in our diversity, how to reconcile the multiplicity of rights with the essentiality of duties. How can people live together in society, how can they freely bring together apparently conflicting diversities? How can the arrogance and violence of some be prevented from prevailing over others? Certainly, this is by no means easy. But if we want to remain human it is not enough to be free; to be united also in a family it is not sufficient to agree upon what is ‘useful’. God must have in himself, precisely because He is One but not alone, the keystone, ‘the secret to the co-presence of diversity’. This is the formula that is also being sought to a greater or lesser extent in all fields. This is why the Bible warns us: Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build²¹.

In our times we have to get used to having a capacity for greater depth so that ‘the mystery that unites’ may be revealed to us: how we can live well and live together, and not as prisoners of the ‘useful’, the ‘immediate’, and the ‘ephemeral’. In approaching and understanding the Our Father we will find this secret, and this secret will gradually become increasingly clear. It will be clearer to many people, to parents and to many young people, who do not see the road leading to this capacity for communion both in social and family relations, between man and woman, and brothers and sisters. It will be much clearer to everyone what to do so that humanity does not turn into inhumanity. In this sense, the Our Father is a path of liberation for humanity. But for this we have to go in depth, to the ‘roots of life’, where biology and sociology ‘touch’ with the mystery of God.

What we are more

This introduces us to the second fundamental reality which is made manifest in the extraordinary and beautiful Word: ‘Father’. This is of great importance to us because it reveals and reminds us of our secret.

When you pray, Jesus said, pray thus: ‘Father’, ‘Our Father’. Jesus Christ has come to extend to us, ‘by grace’, that which is ‘by nature’ his relationship with God, his Father. He is the Son in a unique way, divine ‘by nature’, the same being as the Father. We are children ‘by grace’ of God, and by participation in the life of Jesus: we are ‘children in the Son’. Now, if Jesus has us turn to God calling him ‘Father’, it means that we are essentially ‘children’ and ‘his children’.

Do we truly realise what this fact means? Let us try to understand it a little better.

There are many ways of being. There are those who are single. There are those who are husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, grandparents, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, cousins, uncles, aunts or friends, and many other ways. These are all ways of being different: each person has his own way and everyone has more than one. Now, what is the way of being that is common to all human beings? There is one, and only one, which is the same for everyone and we all have it in a radical way.

It can be observed that we are people and we all have the same human dignity. This is our value. But on what is the value of human dignity based, i.e. that of every man and every woman? What is the real thing, and not just an idea? I do not mean a cultural superstructure, which any school of thought may build up or knock down. What is the fact by virtue of which personal human dignity is the same for all of us, and that cannot possibly be misinterpreted?

It is this: we are all ‘children’. This is common to all of us human beings. Even in the many ways in which we are different we are all and always ‘children’. Children, in the truest sense, are those who have received life and have not given it to themselves. This fact is the same for all ‘sons and daughters’. It is this that defines us and it is the same for everyone! That which makes us equal is ‘being children’ and this is the basis of our human dignity. Everything else is an addition. All other attributes are added: cousins, relatives, friends, brothers in law, sisters in law, uncles, aunts, co-workers, labourers, businessmen and so on.

In being children, two truths immediately emerge. The first is that someone has given us life. You cannot give life to yourself! Who is a child? One who finds life in his hand. Therefore, being children means that we have received life from someone. All of us have received life. Our life rests on this gift that is its base. Clearly, we must also see what we make of life… But this is something else. And so as not to be deceived and not to get everything wrong in life, it is necessary to get down to the roots, to the ‘roots of life’.

The amazing thing that God reminds us of in the prayer of the Our Father is that we are his children! We are his children, not children of the earth… the stars… test tubes… machines… but of a Father that is God! And, if we are his children this means that God the Father reflects and sends back to us our truth as a reflection: it means that we find life in our hand, that life is granted, that it is our precious reality, that someone wanted us to have it, that someone has thought of us, that someone loved us and wanted us, that someone expects something from our life, from the lives of each one of us. Our greatest freedom is that of being ourselves, through and through, in being children of God the Father: there is no greater freedom.

But being a ‘child’ also involves a second truth: I cannot invent everything myself, I must already have a matrix within me in my biological, mental, emotional, sexual, psychological and spiritual mechanism. We have something within us, a ‘how’. We are made in a