Day 33: God as Father (238-242)

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in heaven, you have revealed your deepest identity, you revealed yourself to us through your Son and your Holy Spirit. You've called us. You've made us into your adopted children. And you are our adoptive Father. You've shared your nature with us. You've shared your divine life with us. And so we just rejoice in you. We give you thanks, we praise you. May you be glorified, may you be loved not just by others, not just by people throughout the world, but may you be glorified and may you be loved by us this day. We praise you Father. We love you. Amen”

Scripture References & Reflections

- compiled by Andrew Adamany


Bible Translation - RSVCE


CCC 238 "Many religions invoke God as "Father". The deity is often considered the "father of gods and of men". In Israel, God is called "Father" inasmuch as he is Creator of the world."


Deuteronomy 32:6–7

"Do you thus requite the Lord, 

you foolish and senseless people? 

Is not he your father, who created you, 

who made you and established you? 

Remember the days of old, 

consider the years of many generations; 

ask your father, and he will show you; 

your elders, and they will tell you."


Malachi 2:10

"Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us?"


"Even more, God is Father because of the covenant and the gift of the law to Israel, "his first-born son".


Exodus 4:22–23

"And you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my first-born son, and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me”; if you refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay your first-born son.’ ”


"God is also called the Father of the king of Israel. Most especially he is "the Father of the poor", of the orphaned and the widowed, who are under his loving protection."


2 Samuel 7:12–14 

"When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son."


Psalm 68:5–6 

"Father of the fatherless and protector of widows 

is God in his holy habitation. 

God gives the desolate a home to dwell in; 

he leads out the prisoners to prosperity; 

but the rebellious dwell in a parched land."


CCC 239 "By calling God "Father", the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority; and that he is at the same time goodness and loving care for all his children. 



"God's parental tenderness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood, which emphasizes God's immanence, the intimacy between Creator and creature. 


Isaiah 66:12–13

"For thus says the Lord: 

“Behold, I will extend prosperity to her like a river, and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing stream; and you shall suck, you shall be carried upon her hip, and dandled upon her knees. As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem."


Psalm 131

"A Song of Ascents, of David.

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, 

my eyes are not raised too high; 

I do not occupy myself with things 

too great and too marvelous for me. 

But I have calmed and quieted my soul, 

like a child quieted at its mother’s breast; 

like a child that is quieted is my soul. 

O Israel, hope in the Lord 

from this time forth and for evermore."


"The language of faith thus draws on the human experience of parents, who are in a way the first representatives of God for man. But this experience also tells us that human parents are fallible and can disfigure the face of fatherhood and motherhood. We ought therefore to recall that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: he is God. He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood, although he is their origin and standard: no one is father as God is Father."


Psalm 27:8–10

"Thou hast said, “Seek ye my face.” 

My heart says to thee, 

“Thy face, Lord, do I seek.” 

Hide not thy face from me. 

Turn not thy servant away in anger, 

thou who hast been my help. 

Cast me not off, forsake me not, 

O God of my salvation! 

For my father and my mother have forsaken me, 

but the Lord will take me up."


Isaiah 49:14–15

"But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, 

my Lord has forgotten me.” 

“Can a woman forget her sucking child, 

that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? 

Even these may forget, 

yet I will not forget you."


Ephesians 3:14–19

"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fulness of God."


CCC 240 "Jesus revealed that God is Father in an unheard-of sense: he is Father not only in being Creator; he is eternally Father in relation to his only Son, who is eternally Son only in relation to his Father"


Matthew 11:27 

"All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."


John 10:29–38

"My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” 

The Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of these do you stone me?” The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we stone you but for blasphemy; because you, being a man, make yourself God.” Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came (and scripture cannot be broken), do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”


CCC 241 "For this reason the apostles confess Jesus to be the Word; as "the image of the invisible God"; as the "radiance of the glory of God and the very stamp of his nature".


John 1:1–5

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."


Colossians 1:15–20

"He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross."


Hebrews 1:2–4 

"but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has obtained is more excellent than theirs."


CCC 242 "Following this apostolic tradition, the Church confessed at the first ecumenical council at Nicaea (325) that the Son is "consubstantial" with the Father, that is, one only God with him. The second ecumenical council, held at Constantinople in 381, kept this expression in its formulation of the Nicene Creed and confessed "the only-begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father"


John 10:30 

 "I and the Father are one.”


Hebrews 1:5–13

"For to what angel did God ever say, 

“Thou art my Son, 

today I have begotten thee”? 

Or again, 

“I will be to him a father, 

and he shall be to me a son”? 

And again, when he brings the first-born into the world, he says, 

“Let all God’s angels worship him.” 

Of the angels he says, 

“Who makes his angels winds, 

and his servants flames of fire.” 

But of the Son he says, 

“Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever, 

the righteous scepter is the scepter of thy kingdom. 

Thou hast loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; 

therefore God, thy God, has anointed thee 

with the oil of gladness beyond thy comrades."

And, 

“Thou, Lord, didst found the earth in the beginning, 

and the heavens are the work of thy hands; 

they will perish, but thou remainest; 

they will all grow old like a garment, 

like a mantle thou wilt roll them up, 

and they will be changed. 

But thou art the same, 

and thy years will never end.” 

But to what angel has he ever said, 

“Sit at my right hand, 

till I make thy enemies 

a stool for thy feet”?