"From the Office of Bishop Raymond J Lahey, Diocese of Antigonish, NS"

God ... Creator, Lord, Father

Some time ago, I was struck by the fact that the translators of the opening prayers of the Mass in our current Sacramentary often rendered many different Latin titles for God by the same English word “Father”. Obviously they had done this to create a sense of intimacy, one Jesus himself had encouraged when in prayer he taught us that we could call God “Our Father”.

Yet while the Mass never fails to address God as Father in the great Eucharistic prayers and in the Lord’s Prayer that begins our Communion rite, the opening prayers use many different addresses to God. Some of us will recall them from the time of the Latin Mass: Lord God, almighty God, eternal God, merciful God, etc. While these words have limitations because they are drawn from human experience, each of them calls to our mind a different aspect of God’s greatness, and as a collection they underline the awesomeness of the one to whom we pray.

Such forms reflect the Scriptures themselves. In the first Epistle to Timothy, for example, we find the wonderful text (1:17): “To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.” A similar doxology occurs later in the same letter (6:15-16), where we read: “In the presence of God, who gives life to all things ... he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honor and eternal dominion.” In fact, these passages maintain a continuity with the Hebrew Bible, so rich in its many descriptive titles for the one and eternal God, whose true and holy name (YHWH - “I am who I am”; Exodus 3:14) it will never dare to pronounce, so exalted is it.

Even before Christ, people were able to know and speak of God not only because he had spoken to reveal himself through the great prophetic figures of Israel, but also because as the creator of the universe, God had revealed himself in creation. “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork,” says the first verse of Psalm 19. Paul wrote the same in his letter to the Romans (1:19-20): “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made.”

The God whom we address in every prayer is that same one and eternal God, the God who made the universe, and who maintains it in being, the God who is the source of all life, the God who has no beginning and will have no end, the God who personifies truth, goodness, love, and beauty, the God in whom all things find their ultimate meaning and to whom and for whose glory their very existence is directed.

Yet this same God chose to make us in his own image, and gave us a human dignity like unto his own. This is the God who put within us the divine spark of life. This is the God who created us with intellect, that we could know and understand and be wise, and with will, that we could have the freedom to choose what is true and good. This is the God who put hearts within us so that we could be loving beings, and thus reflect God’s own love for us and for the world. This is the God who made us male and female so that we could share even the very power of creation. This is the God who gave the human dominion over all other creation so that we could tend it and care for it in his name.

This is the God who in the fullness of time sent his own divine Son to take our flesh and blood, thus joining humanity to divinity in a new and eternal bond. This is the God who on the Cross lifted us up with Jesus Christ and brought us with him into the divine life. This is the God who rejoices to have us call him “Abba” – “Father”, for in our words he hears and sees the Christ through, with, and in whom we pray.