The Deplorable F-Word

While the substitute priest was reading Matthew 11:11: “What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish?” instead read, “What parent among you…”
During his homily, he mentioned that a woman said to him, “Father, I will never call God ‘Father’. My father sexually abused me. I can never call God father.”

This priest systematically and seamlessly removed the word Father from the Mass’s prayers and readings.
The only exception was the “Our Father.”

He also mentioned that the reason why Christians of antiquity referred to God as Father was due to societal constructs and misunderstanding of God’s identity.
“God is not sexual. God is not male or female. To call God, Father, is an archaic misnomer.”

Well-intentioned priests, theologians and evangelists believe themselves to be smarter than God who identified Himself as Father.
They believe that by referring to God as “Holy One”, “Lord” ,“Parent”, “Creator” they are protecting their flock, ensuring that wounds inflicted by fallen human fathers will not be reopened.

Priests like this refrain from using the deplorable F-word for fear of offending their parishioners.
They throw the baby out with the bathwater—God the Father out with fallen human fatherhood.

By eclipsing and deleting the identity of God the Father, they wound the faithful even more.
By negating God’s fatherly identity, they deny God’s people the opportunity to live in relationship with the only One who can heal their wounds of abandonment, abuse, distance, of being overlooked and discarded: God the Father.

Human fathers have the noble mission of revealing and reflecting God the Father. (See Familiaris Consortio 25)
God the Father has entrusted the human father with the mission of being a living, breathing representation of Himself. (See Malachi 4:6)

Our Lord Jesus commands us to compare our fatherhood to God the Father: If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the holy Spirit to those who ask him?” (Luke 11-12; Matthew 7:11)

Jesus knows that the human father stinks royally at imaging God the Father.
Our Lord is well aware that there exist wolves in sheep’s and shepherd’s clothing.

Nevertheless, Our Lord commands us to compare the fallen human father with God the Father and conclude that God the Father is the perfect Father who can be trusted, who is ultimate Good, and who loves His children infinitely.

God the Word, in union with God the Father, decided from all eternity to prove His goodness, His love, by allowing the Son, who is the image of the Father, to be crushed by our sins and ingratitude.

Jesus tells us that when we see Him, we see God the Father. (see Jn 14:9)
When we look upon a crucifix, or adore the Sacred Eucharist, we see God the Father has become a sacrificial victim.
He veils His power, His superiority that we may approach Him without the fear of being punished.

Our Lord’s mission was to unite every human being with God the Father, that every child of God can experience His filial relationship with God the Father.

St. Paul clearly explains the sure way to know that we have the Holy Spirit:
“Those who are led by the Spirit cry out Abba, Father.” (Rom 8:15)

Abba is a tender Hebrew word that doesn’t simply mean daddy, but rather it is a term of endearment, trust and submission.
In a way it means, “Daddy, I trust and submit to you.”

Jesus teaches us that the first word on our lips when we pray is “Father.” (See Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4)
The vernacular messes this up by adding the word our prior to Father.
In the Latin and Greek, the first word is Pater, Father. This is the accurate translation.

Moments prior to entering into His torment, torture and crucifixion, the first word Jesus uttered in prayer to God was “Abba.”
“Abba, Father, everything is possible for you.” (Mark 14:36).

Rather than eclipsing and deleting God the Father from our prayers, Masses, homilies, we are to be ambassadors of Jesus Christ, who by following His example, teach others how to have an intimate, trusting, joyfully liberating relationship with God the Father.

This is His mission, and it is ours.

The future of the Church, the family, and the salvation of souls depend on knowing and trusting not some general, generic God—but God, Jesus’ Father, and Our Father.
This was the ultimate purpose of Jesus Christ: to make us sons of the Father in His very sonship.
“I go to My God and your God, My Father and your Father.” (John 20:17, emphasis added)

Let us prove to be true witnesses of God’s fatherly identity, as Our Lord Jesus reveals Him, by using the F-Bomb—a nuclear blast that destroys the Father of Lies, the devil himself.

Anything less than referring to God as our Father is a demonic deception that by cloaking itself with ‘compassion’ separates us from God the Father rather than uniting us to Him.