R. Alleluia, alleluia.
You have received a spirit of adoption as sons
through which we cry: Abba! Father!
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
We are the children of God. Thus, we inherit all that belongs to our Father. Yet, because we are adopted children, we can have a tendency to think down deep in our souls that we really do not belong. So our Father gives us a Spirit of adoption, a Spirit that helps us to relate to our Father. As we mature in our faith, that Spirit brings us to greater and more profound simplicity. We grow up enough to relate to our Father as a child. We cry Abba, Papa, Dada. That Spirit gives us what we need to humbly approach our Father and then Jesus teaches us what to say in the Father’s presence.
There are times when we are so distraught that we have no words for our Father. We suffer in silence or we lament our condition. Perhaps we are angry with God and, like the prophet Jeremiah, wonder what our Father is doing or why he has done what he has done. Perhaps we are hurting so much that all we can do is groan within ourselves. In all of this the Spirit helps us and sometimes even talks to the Father for us when we cannot.
One thing Jesus makes very clear is that our Father loves us and knows what we need before we ask him. So, we should just ask him. We do not have to write a twenty page dissertation to convince our loving Father to hear our prayer. Pagans do that. We do not have to get God’s attention by an avalanche of words. His loving gaze is always upon us.
Another lesson from the prophets that I think Jesus would agree with is that we should be careful what we pray for. In the prayer Jesus teaches us, we pray “hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” The prophet Habakkuk asked God to make his name holy and God did just that by sending a foreign army to subjugate the country. Habakkuk assured God that this was not what he had in mind. However, if you ask your Father to act, should you then tell him what he can and cannot do?
Jesus then teaches us to ask our Father for our daily bread. The Father certainly takes care of our physical needs but the bread Jesus mentions is the superabundant Bread of Life, the Eucharist. In this prayer we ask the Father to give us the flesh and blood of Jesus which our Lord assured us would give us eternal life. Asking a loving Father for life is what some might call a no-brainer; God breathed into us the breath of life in the beginning and he does not plan to stop now.
Finally, we ask our Father to do what all good fathers do, namely, to protect us from the Evil One and to forgive us when we go against his teachings. He assures us of his forgiveness but wants us to become like him. Thus, we are taught to forgive others. The Father wants us to treat others in the same way that he treats us.
We have received a Spirit of adoption. We are children of a kind and loving Father. Let us cry out to him, brothers and sisters. He longs to hear our voice.
George Butterfield
I served as the Legal Reference Librarian at the Creighton University Law School Library from August, 2007, until August of 2017. I also taught Legal Research to first year law students and Advanced Legal Research to second and third year law students. In August of 2017 I took the position of Director of Evangelization and Catechesis for the St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Edmond, Oklahoma, and served in that capacity until Covid hit and the church staff was cut in half. Recently I took a position with the St. Gerald Catholic Church in Omaha, Nebraska, and my wife and I moved back to the Omaha suburb of Papillion.
My wife, Deb, and I have been married since 1970. She grew up in Oklahoma City and I migrated south from southwestern Pennsylvania. God has blessed us with three children, four living grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. I spent the first thirty years of our marriage as a minister so our family moved a lot. We have lived in several states, including Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, and California.
I enjoy walking, reading, listening to audio books, playing with my Pekingnese, Max, my Maltese-Schnauzer, Blaise, and seeing my grandkids grow up. I am a Catholic deacon, having been ordained by Archbishop George Lucas on May 5, 2012.
There is nothing to compare with reflecting on scripture. I feel privileged to participate in these daily reflections. Although we don’t know whether or not St. Francis ever said it, one idea associated with him is that we preach the gospel always and, when necessary, use words. May these reflections be gospel words, good news, of our gracious Lord Jesus Christ.
