If we stop to pause at the Our Father, many of us trip up
even at the thought and image of God as a loving 'Father' . That God the Father loves us, and that
the Father loves even me!
Somehow somewhere along the way in the Church we somehow got
into our heads the idea of a vengeful angry God wanting to trip up us up, who
counts our sins (and not our tears). This may well be due to
incidents in the Old Testament such as that of Sodom and Gomorrah and the ‘fire
and brimstone’ that fell from heaven to obliterate these cities of notoriety.
While the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is one that captures the
imagination of a God who is ready to punish the wicked there is yet a seeming reluctance
on the part of God – as reflected in the First Reading today - to do so. The sins
of Sodom were grave indeed and if we were to read more about the residents (in
Genesis 19) they are portrayed as depraved beyond belief, guilty of sexual desire
without any boundaries and any sense of moral consequence. They were stubborn
in their ways and recklessly abandoned any natural morality. As a consequence –
young and old were spiritually and morally dead. It is hard for us to imagine a
kind of existence without any moral frame of reference although as a society we
are certainly headed in that direction. Sodom was a society in self-destruct
mode.
The story of Abraham’s intercession on their behalf shows us
that God is ready to relent if there is some justice and uprightness in a
sinful society, that God withholds his just punishment if there are those whose
lives have gained God’s favour on behalf of their sinful brethren interceding
for them and making reparation for them. But there is a breaking point, an irretrievable
point at which God says ‘enough!’ – as if to say ‘no more sin, or punishment will
surely come upon you.’ This is rather frightening and does not sit well with
us, but it makes complete sense that if enough people break the natural moral
law, there are consequences on a grander societal scale.
In the twentieth century private revelations (subsequently
approved by the Church) show that things have not changed since Sodom and Gomorrah
– God’s threat of punishment is conditional on our response. At Fatima, we were
reminded that war is a punishment for sin and that we are invited to repent, or
great evils will come upon us. This is the mystery of sin, and our part in it
and our part in repentance and reparation for it through lives of spiritual and
moral purity. Our Lady told us through us that peace will come when a sufficient
number of people do as she asked. To the children she admonished us: ‘do not
offend God any more, He is already too much offended.’ At Rwanda in 1980 (approved) visions to at
least three people took place – where up to 10 young people were visited by Our
Lady and urged to proclaim national reconciliation and prayer, and if not a
river of blood would flow through their land. The people did not listen and a terrible
genocide of up to 1 million dead took place in 3 months in 1994. Again a
tremendous mystery. God appeals to us and we do not listen. God is patient and
wants us to avail of every opportunity to purify the intentions of our hearts. ‘there
are some demons that are visible and some that reside in men’s hearts’, one Rwandan
had said.
In the Gospel, Jesus gave us the perfect intercessory prayer in
the Our Father. The fact that God is OUR Father reminds us that we pray to Him
for one another.
There is a whole section in the Catechism on the prayer (CCC
nn2759-2864)
It is ultimately a prayer given out of love and for love of God and one another:
‘If we pray the Our Father sincerely we leave
all individualism behind, because the love we receive frees us from it…if we
are to say it truthfully, our divisions and oppositions have to be overcome…(CCC n2792)
…praying with and for all who do not yet know
Him’ (CCC n2793)
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