God, Father of Infinite Mercy

From chapter 1.

We are children of God. The Gospel proclaims this truth clearly, though unfortunately many are unaware of it. Divine filiation, God’s call to be his sons and daughters in Jesus Christ, is a treasure whose richness outshines the most precious earthly possession. If people were truly aware of this reality, our world would be a very different place. It would be a world without hatred or discrimination, without backbiting or slander, where the simple and clear truth would hold sway. There would be no place for abuse or manipulation, and solidarity would grow, since the realization that we are children of our Father God leads immediately to fraternity….

God is our Father. He gives us life, and watches over us with infinite affection. His providential care never leaves us. Certainly it is sometimes difficult to see his providence or comprehend his ways, but we can always abandon ourselves trustingly in his fatherly arms. When seen in this light, our life as ordinary men and women takes on its true and deep meaning and overflows with supernatural and human richness.

The sense of pointlessness and monotony, the feeling that our inevitable daily occupations are dull and without value, will disappear. We will instead be able to see work, family life and daily concerns as a divine gift, an opportunity to serve others joyfully. There will be no room for a loveless and constrained attitude, half pharisaical and half puritanical, that reduces religion to trying to placate God’s severity by fulfilling certain rules. Nor will there be room for superficiality or routine in dealing with God. This approach to religion makes no sense to a person who deeply grasps the reality of our divine filiation, who is aware of God’s constant and loving nearness. Our personal biography goes hand in hand with the loving providence of our Father God. No human being has ever been alone in his passage through this world of ours, since God is always at his children’s side.

God is our Father. He gives us life, and watches over us with infinite affection. His providential care never leaves us.

Certainly trying situations will arise that we find impossible to understand with our intellect alone. But even then we should never lose sight of God’s love. With the security that faith brings, we have to look at Jesus. God sent his Son into the world so that we would become his sons and daughters in the Son, and so that, by contemplating him, we might come to know the immensity of his love. The Father reveals his fatherhood through the words and life of the eternal Son, who assumed our nature and entered human history. Christ, by his deeds and words, reveals the Father to us and makes known to us his infinite Love.