We have all come to know and love Jesus, having dedicated our lives to Him in various ways, whether single, married, priests, or religious. Do we realize that Jesus was sent to reveal the Father to us?
Listen to what Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, “And this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (Jn 17:3). And earlier Jesus firmly declared, “Truly, truly, I tell you, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life" (5:24).
Clearly, eternal life is not just knowing and loving Jesus, but coming to know and love the Father too! To truly know Jesus… is to know the Father. Remember at the Last Supper, how Jesus lovingly declared to His apostles: “If you had known Me, you would know My Father as well” (Jn 14:7).
\Jesus desires that we, too, would know the Father through Him.
It is certainly not Jesus’ will that the Father remain a background figure in our lives. Consider this statement: “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father, except through me” (Jn 14:6).
Here, Jesus is stating that He is not the end, but the means to the end, which is to know and love the Father. And is it not the Father whom Jesus teaches us to pray: “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name…’’ (Matt 6:9-15). And He intercedes for us to the Father: “Amen, Amen, I tell you, whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you. Until now, you have not asked for anything in My name. Ask, and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete” (Jn 16:23, 24).
Truly, to know the Father is the fulfillment of all our joy in knowing and loving Jesus! We were baptized into Jesus to become sons and daughters of His Father. How Jesus longs to share with us His love for the Father.
Allow me to make an analogy. If you met two identical twins, how could you distinguish them unless you came to know both of them? Well, we now know and love Jesus, and it is time for us to know the Father as distinct from Him.
I once knew a mystic, now deceased, who had an extraordinary relationship with the Father. Her name was Eileen George. In fact, she called her worldwide outreach: “Meet the Father Ministry.” When Eileen would receive Holy Communion, she would go to heaven to visit with Jesus and the Father. In one of those visits, she writes how sad the Father was that so many do not know Him: “Sometimes He tells me they don’t understand He’s a loving Father, …He wants so much for the people to know Him, and they don’t know Him.”
Can I make a few suggestions to help us better know and love God our Father?
First of all, let us ask Jesus to continue to reveal Him to us. He is already doing this: “I have made Your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love You have for Me may be in them, and I in them.” (Jn 17:26). Second, we should seek the Father and His love through prayer and Bible study. As a priest, I pray the psalms daily. I have discovered the Father’s love in praying the psalms of St. David, who wrote about half of them. How David loved the Father and the Father him! And how his psalms are alive with his praise! St. David was given quite a gift, which he can still share with us today.
In conclusion, I do pray that we all might come to experience the love between the Father and the Son. It is the world’s greatest love story… and it should be our love story as well!
