Gospel (Mt 11:25-27)

At that time Jesus declared,

“I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

Commentary

We sometimes see how parents, when they have a family business, pass on all their experience to their children so that they can eventually take it over and lead it to even greater success. Jesus says something similar today about his Father God: “All things have been handed over to me by my Father.”

Jesus’ life cannot be understood except as the life of the Son of God in his perfect unity with the Father. And one of the greatest treasures he has given us with his incarnation has been to tell us about his Father, the God whom no one had ever contemplated: “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.” (Jn 1:18).

When Philip tells Jesus at the Last Supper, “Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied,” he replies, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:8-9). When we doubt God’s goodness and closeness to us, we can once again contemplate the life and heart of Jesus in the pages of the Gospel. There we find the consolation of a Father who loves us as his beloved sons and daughters.

The discovery of our divine filiation is the gift of God in Christ Jesus. Saint Josemaría recounted his experience of this reality in the autumn of 1931: “I had learned to call God Father, in the Lord's Prayer, since I was a child. But to feel, see, marvel at God’s desire for us to be his children – that happened in the street and on a tram, for an hour or an hour and a half; I’m not sure how long. And I had to cry out: Abba, Pater!” (Meditation 24 December 1969).

This immense gift is something that each of us has to discover and experience personally in our own lives, asking God for his grace to do so.