Abba, Father

Abba, Father

Father Marie-Dominique Philippe, O.P.

When we cry "Abba" it is the Spirit Himself....

We enter here into a great mystery. For Saint Thomas this passage from the Letter to the Romans expresses the most profound and the most intimate experience of our Christian life, the summit of mystical life.

When under the breath of the Holy Spirit we can say with Jesus "Abba, Father"--not only with our lips but in the silence of love, as a cry--we have a divine experience of our sonship, of our birth to divine life. We enter into this eternal generation of the Word of God (the Logos), of the Son who is in the bosom of the Father [1]. We are grasped by Christ, seized by Him (this is the proper of our Christian life) so that He might take possession of our inmost heart, of our will, so that we might have the same sentiments [2] as Him, the same cry as Him, and say in all truth, "Abba, Pater."

It is this we are going to try to consider. We can say that it is at the point of departure and at the term of all that we have previously considered regarding the different aspects of fatherhood. At the point of departure and at the term because it is going to remain eternally; this cry will remain eternally. In heaven we will eternally, unceasingly say "Father," and we will say it in the light of the beatific vision, gazing upon the Father and understanding that there is nothing greater than Him. And we will say "Father" in the light that Jesus gives us, this light that comes from the Son, "Light from Light." We will say it in His light, and we will discover eternally what we glimpse already as of this earth, in the obscurity of faith and in love. We will discover eternally that there is nothing greater than saying "Father." We will discover that the eternal Word, the Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, also eternally gazes upon the Father and that the Holy Spirit also eternally gazes upon the Father and that the Father is eternally their source of light and love.
We will then understand that the mystery of the Incarnation is there to reveal the Father to us. We will understand that the Holy Spirit is given to us that we might discover the Father and that all Scripture is given to us that we might understand the Father's gaze of love upon us and His attraction of love. All of Scripture is there that we might enter into this attraction of love. In heaven we will understand this in full light; here, on earth, it is in the obscurity of faith. But we know that saying "Father" is truly what is greatest. If Jesus is the Bridegroom, it is so that we might be able to say, with Him, "Father." If the Holy Spirit is given to us and envelops us with His love, it is so that, with Him, we might be able to say "Father."

It is for this reason that in our orison, our silent, interior prayer, we must constantly come back to this. We must ask the Holy Spirit to give us this experience. We must ask Him to help us grasp this filiation of love which we find in ourselves. We are in it. We must ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten us and to let us understand that this is the essential thing in our Christian life and that, in the end, this is our Christian life. It is from this filiation of love and in it that all the rest is enlightened. We must ask for this, for it is a grace. The Holy Spirit wants to give us this experience of love. He wants us to understand this more deeply than we have understood it until now. He wants to lead us into this mystery of filiation so that we might in all truth say "Father," in Church and also in listening to preaching. I am obliged to speak to you; you have the privilege of being silent; it is more contemplative. You can contemplate and you must contemplate and you must contemplate in saying "Father." You must enter into this contemplation of love understanding that He is there and that He gives you His light and He communicates to you His love so that you might be able to look upon Him in all truth and say, "Abba, Father, Pater."

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walked not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you.

So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh--for if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit who put to death the deeds of the body you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him [3].

Saint Paul begins by showing the difference between the Spirit and the law and then he shows us that this Spirit is given to us. It is not a Spirit of fear but a Spirit of filial adoption, and this Spirit of adoption is the Spirit of God which is given to us, which is communicated to us and which enables us to say in all truth, "Abba, Father." It is the Spirit who bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. This is the common work of our effort and of the Holy Spirit. Hence there is a sort of "knot." When we say "Abba, Father," it is the work of the Holy Spirit and of our own will, our good will.

There is another place (we must always put these two places in parallel) where this mystery is shown to us:

But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father"! So through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir [4].

Here we find again the same theme: the freedom of the children of God before slavery. In today's world it is very important to understand liberation from slavery. A son is free; and we can only discover the Father in this freedom of love. If a father is a tyrant he creates slaves, and slaves do not say, "Abba, Father." It is free children who can say "Abba, Father," and the free child is an heir....

There is a third place. There are only three; exegetes have noted it well. Those who are interested in this word "Abba"--which is not a Greek but an Aramaic term expressing intimacy--know it is the equivalent of "Daddy." "Father" is already a bit more solemn. "Daddy" is simpler. We should translate "Daddy." This Aramaic word is not found in the Old Testament and we only encounter it three times in the New Testament (the Letter to the Romans, the Letter to the Galatians, and undoubtedly the first time in Mark). It is at Gethsemane. Jesus has just said, "'My soul is very sorrowful even to death, remain here, and watch.'" Mark continues, "And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, 'Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee; remove this cup from me'" [5].

It is indeed the Holy Spirit (the principle author of Scripture as Saint Thomas says) who has allowed this threefold revelation of "Abba, Father." So if we want to enter into this mystery that Saint Thomas tells us is the most profound of our Christian life, we must be very attentive to the paths that the Holy Spirit indicates. Now the Holy Spirit indicates three. When the Holy Spirit does things, it is always in a Trinitarian way. We would most likely take the four cardinal points or the five dimensions of our sensations and our knowledge or, if we are very spiritual, the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. That is why we have had seven conferences this year! But beyond seven, there is a sort of leap into the Holy Trinity.

It is Jesus who first revealed what He said to the Father, how He addressed the Father. And it is Jesus in the mystery of the Agony, and the moment where He can no longer go on, at the moment when His soul is sorrowful even unto death, and when He asks His apostles to remain with Him. This is marvellous: Jesus wanted to need the presence of His apostles, thereby knowing perfectly the weakness of the heart of man. We are all like this. We, with the generosity that we have, are the apostles. Nonetheless they followed Jesus three years! Should they not have understood Him? But no, three years of novitiate with Jesus and they do not understand. They are still the same. We will remain the same until the end of our life. When Jesus asks us to accompany Him and to pray, we say to Him, "I am too tired."

Nevertheless we want to hear Jesus revealing to us what is most profound in His heart--His intimate bond with the Father--because we sense in our faith that it is this which is most profound in the heart of Christ. Otherwise it is not what is most profound in us, it is not our heart in its most intimate and most divine aspect. It would still be exterior surface things. What we call "depth psychology" attains to something other than what we are talking about here, which is finally, dare we say, nothing but the depth of the heart of Jesus in us. It is this that we must try to grasp in order to penetrate of it this mystery of "Abba, Father." It is what is most profound in our heart; it is the heart of Jesus that takes hold of our heart and makes it one with His; it is the desire of Christ.

The heart of Christ, the wounded heart of the Lamb is more present to our heart than our heart, transformed by grace, is present to itself. We must try to grasp this every day in our prayer. For this indeed is orison. It is living this profound intimacy, this unity with the heart of Christ. We must not seek anything else; we must always come back to this. This is our place of prayer. We must understand (if we want) this intimacy between our heart and the heart of Jesus, an intimacy such that the heart of Christ is more present to our heart than our heart is present to itself, in the order of grace.

What is most present in the heart of Christ? What is deepest in His heart? It is His bond with the Father. Here I am speaking of the human heart of Christ, and not of the mystery of the Word of God. The Word, the Son, is "in the bosom of the Father" [6], and by the mystery of the Incarnation, the wounded heart of the Lamb is in the bosom of the Father because the Word assumes human nature in such a way that human nature becomes one with the Word of God (a mystery of personal unity that theologians call the "hypostatic union").

If then what is most secret in the Word is being in the bosom of the Father, then what is most intimate and deepest in the heart of the Lamb, in the heart of Jesus, is being in the bosom of the Father. It is here that Jesus calls His Father. It is here that He says, "Abba, Daddy." The Father is always intimately present to the heart of Jesus. He never leaves it. Nevertheless, the heart of Jesus must call to Him. And He calls to Him at the moment when He experiences the greatest sadness, the greatest distress, the greatest solitude, an isolation with respect to His apostles and with respect to all men--"I looked for pity but there was none; and for comforters and I found none" [7]. It is at this moment that, under the breath of the Holy Spirit, Jesus says, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit" [8]; Jesus says, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me" [9]. And at the Agony He says, "Abba, Father." We must put in parallel these two texts in order to better understand the mystery of abandonment which Jesus knows in the Agony and at the Cross in order to penetrate what is most intimate in this mystery, in order to discover what is most vulnerable in the heart of Jesus.

Where Jesus is most vulnerable in His heart is where there is the most love. The more we love, the more we are vulnerable. And where is there the most love in the heart of Jesus? In His bond with the Father, this intimate bond lived in sinu Patris. What does this indicate to us?

In commenting upon this verse in Saint John, Saint Thomas tells us that in sinu Patris indicates what is most intimate in the very simplicity of the Father. The simplicity of the Father makes everything intimate in the Father; this is what is marvellous. His paternity is unfamiliar with distraction. For a moment, think of a child who is close to his father while his father works. The child knows that he is not in the intimacy of his father. He tugs on his father's sleeve and says to him, "Here I am. Look at me," or he says things to catch the attention of his father because he wants his father to look at him. Indeed, in a father there are "many dwelling places," many and varied dwellings for he is occupied with his work or such and such a thing.... And the child immediately senses that the father is not entirely present, and that what is greatest in his father is not entirely turned towards him.

God, on the other hand, is simple. In Him there are not many dwelling places. When Jesus says that there are many dwellings in the house of His Father [10], He indeed says "in the house of the Father" and not "in sinu Patris," in the bosom of the Father. The house of the Father is the heavenly Jerusalem.

The Father, because He is simple, because He is love, gives Himself in plenitude to the Son. It is so as to express this full gift that Saint John says that the Son is in the "bosom of the Father," to show the great intimacy, to show that at the very moment (if we may venture to say) when the Father gives Himself totally, the Word, the Son, abides in this fecundity of the Father. The Father gives Himself at the moment (so to speak) when His whole self is gift; and the Word abides in this plenitude of gift. He receives everything and abides in this plenitude of the gift.

What is true of the Word is true--all proportions maintained--for the humanity and the heart of Jesus. The heart of Jesus subsists in the Word. It therefore receives all the light of the Word, all the love of the Word. It receives the plenitude of light and love. And if the heart of the Lamb is wounded, it is so that we might understand the intensity of His love for the one who is the unique source from which comes all light, all life, and all love. The heart of Jesus is bound to the Father, it is bound in the very Spirit of the Father who is one with His Spirit. They have the same Spirit of love. And the heart of Jesus, in its love, is bound to the Father in this Spirit.

In faith we can, and we must never forget this, hear Jesus saying in His heart, "Abba, Father." We must always come back to this because it is Jesus who teaches us how to gaze upon the Father and to love Him, and to say, "Abba, Father." We must therefore hear it from Jesus. It concerns living it with Jesus and therefore of grasping what is so great when Jesus, in a cry, says, "Abba, Daddy."

Jesus knows that the Father is constantly attentive, that He is never distracted. He knows that the Father is there, present. The Father is always there. But He calls and cries out to Him in His human heart, in His heart as Son, in His heart as priest; He cries out to Him in His heart as a victim of love. He demands the presence of His Father: "Abba"! He demands the gaze of His Father. He demands that the Father be entirely for Him: "Abba"!

When Jesus on the Cross says, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me"? he does not say "Abba" but "My God." It is very important so that we might grasp what was lived in the great intimacy of the Agony. The Agony is indeed a mystery of great intimacy. It is a mystery of contemplation. It is the mystery of the Beloved Son before the Father. The Cross is also a mystery of intimacy but it is not only this. It is also a mystery which is lived in front of everyone. We know this well, and that is why it is so difficult....

At the Cross Jesus says, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me"? It is the humility of Jesus that is addressing the Father. It is Jesus as man adoring and addressing His God. It is Jesus who addresses the omnipotence of the Father and who recognizes the absence of this omnipotence. The Father lets man seek vengeance on Jesus out of jealousy. The Father keeps quiet; there is a great silence here....

Of the seven words of Christ on the Cross, the one closest to the "Abba" of the Agony is undoubtedly the "I thirst." For when Jesus says "Abba," He wishes to express the greatest desire of His heart, and the greatest desire of His heart is that for the love of the Father, and that of being entirely love for the Father. Here (between "My God, my God" and "Abba") there is a contrast which is very eloquent for us and which enables us to enter into this mysterious intimacy. What is most vulnerable in the heart of Jesus, what is most loving and most burning is this bond with the Father. He is the Beloved Son in whom the Father is well pleased [11]. It is the Father Himself who says this, "He is the Son, the Beloved." He is the very complaisance, the pleasure of the Father, that is, the Father loves Him with unique love. All the love that He could give to His Beloved Son, all the love that He could give to the Word, the Father gives to Jesus, to the holy humanity of Jesus. Otherwise He would not be able to say that Jesus is His Son, the Beloved, the One in whom He is well pleased, upon whom rests His favor. In order for Him to be able to say this, all the love that He has for the Word, for His Beloved Son, must be communicated in plenitude to the heart of Jesus, who remains the Beloved Son.

What is the response of Jesus? At the Baptism and at the Transfiguration He is silent; at the Agony there is this cry, "Father." This is the response.

Let us try to understand a bit what is contained in this "Abba" of the Beloved Son. It is love, obviously. It is a response to the covenant that the Father has made with His Beloved Son, the Agapetos in whom He is well pleased, the Beloved, the Unique, the One whom "His heart loves" [12].

And Jesus calls, cries out. Out of love Jesus opens His heart, saying, "Abba, Pater." This is the response of Jesus; His response in love. His response has been made immediately at the Baptism, but in silence. Here, it is given for us so that we might understand the intensity of the love that Jesus has for the Father.

His response is given at the moment of the Agony. This is important because it is only the moment when we suffer in a particularly strong way, when the weight of sorrow is particularly intense, that we can divulge certain secrets, reveal certain secrets--this we know well. It is with the weight of the suffering of the Agony--"My soul is sorrowful even unto death"--that Jesus says, "Abba," that Jesus gazes upon the Father as a little child.

When a person suffers intensely, when his soul is sorrowful even unto death, when he is faced with defeat, with the defeat of his whole life, he experiences extreme fragility. Now, humanly speaking, what Jesus lived at the Agony was the most total defeat. It was a defeat that was not only human, it was the defeat of the One sent by the Father, of the One who wants to glorify the Father and to save us. For Christ's heart, the mystery of the Cross is terrible because it is an apparent defeat. And he experiences the weakness of men. He knows how difficult it is for man to go beyond appearance and therefore to go beyond what is an exterior defeat so as to discover deeper truth.

Jesus knows all this, and it is for this reason that it is so difficult and so heavy--for Him who comes to save us, to show us the path, Him who comes to carry the flag of the Beloved Son and indicate to us where the Father is....

Here there is a mystery of great sadness, of divine sadness. Let us not stop at anguish. The Agony is a mystery. Anguish is not a mystery, we know this well. The Agony of Christ assumes anguish, yes, but we do not understand and cannot understand the great mystery of the Agony if we remain at the level of anguish because it is psychological. If we remain at the psychological level, we no longer understand the mystery of Christ, because the mystery of Christ is always lived at the level of the Beloved Son linked to the Father.

What is true is that He bears the anguish of men, the sadness of men, all their misfortune. This He bore totally, to the end, but He bore it in love and it is for this reason that it is a divine sadness, a mystery. At this moment Jesus experiences in His soul something new, an experience that He has not yet known: the experience of agony, the experience of sadness, of solitude--I was going to say, of the abandonment of men. And this experience is lived in love. It is for this reason that He says, "Father, Abba"! The words of a child.

The more we suffer the more we become again like little children in a twofold fragility: fragility that comes from love which is vulnerability and, here, the fragility of one who must bear the sadness of the world, the anguish of the world.

In this mystery of Gethsemane there is an abyss in the heart of Jesus, an abyss of sadness, of fragility: "Father, Abba."

Let us try to deepen this further, understanding that this call is the call of the poor one; for the little child is poor. Jesus does not return to the creche, that is obvious. It is not a psychological return to littleness. In the Agony Jesus is smaller in His human experience, in the experience of His heart. He knows a greater littleness than that which He knew at Bethlehem.

At Bethlehem, He knows the littleness of a child who is totally placed into the hands of his parents. At Gethsemane, He knows the littleness of one who enters into a unique poverty, into divine poverty: the absolute divestment of one who no longer has any rights. In no time, all that He has done is, as it were, abandoned, burned, destroyed. He has nothing left but the Father. Certainly the Father is everything for Him but in His human soul He no longer has anything but the Father....

To better understand the cry of the child who says "Father," let us consider other cries in the Old Testament. They will help us to better understand it.

There is first the cry of little Ishmael, which is so extraordinary. Indeed, the cry of little Ishmael is addressed to his mother, for his father Abraham has abandoned him. Poor Abraham! He perhaps heard the cry of the child in the depths of his heart....

Nevertheless, there is this cry of little Ishmael and the mother tires of hearing this cry (because she can do nothing about it), and so she distances herself from the child so as to no longer hear it, and it is at this moment that God hears the cry of the child. The cry of the child is indeed "Abba." Everything is contained in this word; it is a cry. It is the cry of a poor child who thirsts, who cannot continue, who is close to death, who falls into agony. This child is in agony; he is going to die, and the Father hears him....

There is also the cry of little Isaac (Abraham heard these two cries): "Father." Little Isaac, when he is close to Mount Moriah on the last day of the journey (we can see the weight), says, "Father." But there is something completely different, it is not a cry of distress; it is the cry of a child who senses a great mystery.

Children often sense certain things that adults no longer sense unless they have the heart of a child of God. A child immediately senses when a situation is abnormal and when it is grave. It is for this reason that there is this cry which seeks to awaken the father as father. Isaac wants to awaken what is most affective, what is most loving, what is deepest in the heart of his father. His father seems so absent! He seems so plunged into his ideas, into his sadness. Here the child does not bear the sadness of the father but he senses that there is something grave and he questions. For when a child senses something grave, he cannot bear it by himself. He is obliged to say it. So there is this cry.

There is also the silence of Benjamin at the moment he must leave his father. Scripture does not tell us anything. It is the father who speaks, but Benjamin is listening [13].

What we must understand is that if Jesus says, "Abba," it is to express a desire, a desire of love. Let us ask ourselves the question, "What is the desire of love that allows us to understand the intensity of this call: 'Abba'"?

When we call upon our Father, we call upon Him as the one we love, as the one in whom we have complete trust (otherwise it would not be a bond of filiation), the one upon whom we can rely knowing that He will never leave us even if others abandon us [14]. All of this is in the cry "Abba." It is an ultimate call, a final call in the sense that we are sure of finding here someone upon whom we can rely, that nothing, absolutely nothing can take away, and which founds in us absolute trust, unshakeable hope.

This is indeed what is shown to us in the Gospel of Saint Mark when Jesus says to His Father, "Abba." He expresses an intense desire--"All things are possible for thee"--what is possible to the Father as Father, not to God as Creator. It is truly here that we grasp the absolute trust of a child, of the Beloved Son in whom the Father is well pleased, who can lean upon His Father because His Father is nothing but love.

"Father, all things are possible to thee, remove this cup from me." There must have been a great silence at this moment, "yet not what I will but what thou wills." All this expresses what this cry "Abba" is, if we want to understand it.

Jesus therefore expresses an intimate desire that He can only say to the Father; for there are desires that we can only say to our Father, there are prayers that we can only say to Him who is the "Daddy" in whom we have complete trust.

What is this desire? It is a desire that only the Father can understand. We cannot understand it by ourselves, with our intelligence alone; it is something much too secret. But, to the degree that, with Jesus, we say to the Father the same word "Abba," we can then penetrate into this mystery. For, at that moment, Christ, more present to our heart in grace than we are to ourselves, can lead us to discover what is most intimate and deepest in His heart as Son. But it is in the great intimacy of prayer, and only in the intimacy of prayer. Certain secrets can only be communicated in the intimacy of prayer.

Mary Let us ask the question: In the intimacy of prayer, what is this secret? We know, according to Saint Luke [15], that the consoler Angel comes close to Jesus and that this angel, according to the Fathers of the Church, is Gabriel. Is this angel not Gabriel, the one sent to the Holy Virgin? There is something very intimate, an intimate bond with Mary. Each time Jesus addresses the Father as Father, in the deepest aspect of His paternity, of His fatherhood, there is a bond with Mary. It cannot be otherwise because the divine maternity of Mary manifests His fatherhood; it is for us, as it were, its echo. It seems to me that it is here that we can discover what this deep desire of the heart of the Beloved Son is. For what is most intimate in the desire of the heart of Christ meets up with the desires of the Father: it is indeed the desire of the Beloved Son as Beloved Son who places in the Father all His pleasure.

The Father gave Him Mary to be His mother, and Jesus, the One sent by the Father, must be the guardian of her whom the Father has given Him as mother. Jesus is responsible for her before the Father, for these bonds are inevitably irrevocable. Mary gave everything and was a little servant in her divine motherhood; but Jesus was immediately the One who, in His royal priesthood, took on the responsibility of the most beloved ewe, the ewe that He bore on His shoulders, the ewe that He pressed against His heart, the ewe that was everything for Him.

Jesus knows what is going to happen. He knows that the arrest is going to take place a few moments later. He knows that Mary is going to be present at the Cross. Jesus knows the words of the elder Simeon: "A sword will pierce through your own soul also" [16].

Consequently, in His prayer as Beloved Son addressing His Father in the greatest intimacy, is there not, at that moment, great trust which remains hidden but which, if we so desire, can be revealed to us?

Jesus knows that the sacrifice of the Cross suffices for the full satisfaction of all the faults of humanity. He knows that the sacrifice of the Cross suffices to give the plenitude of grace to the whole Church, starting with Mary.

If this suffices, why then must His suffering superabound in the heart of Mary? Why must the woman be present at the Cross and suffer what Jesus must suffer?

For a noble and magnanimous heart, for a royal heart, it is nothing to suffer. What is terrible is to be a source of suffering for those whom we love and, in particular, for one's mother. For the heart of Jesus, this is intolerable. Is this not expressed in this "Abba"? When saying "Abba" (and so in asking with the greatest trust, the greatest intimacy with the Father) He expresses what He had not yet expressed: why not be the only one to suffer? Why not be the only one to bear the weight of the Cross? Why must Mary be there and have a violated heart, a wounded heart? Why must the sword pierce her soul? "Father, all things are possible to thee, remove this cup from me."

The cup expresses the mystery of the Cross in its plenitude. Jesus does not say remove death but the cup, the plenitude of the mystery of the Cross, that is, the Cross taking hold of the heart of Mary, taking hold of the Church.

Jesus beseeched the Father, He said, "Abba." Jesus addresses what is most intimate and deepest in the Father and asks to be the only scapegoat, to be the only One who bears everything. In saying "Abba," Jesus asks that Mary be spared, and that the Church be spared, and that we be spared. Jesus asks this for us by saying, "Abba." He says this to the Father as the intimate desire of a little child who knows that he can ask unbelievable things, which is why He immediately adds, "yet not what I will but what thou wilt." All this is contained in this call, in this cry of love towards the Father. This is what is revealed to us. True, we must interpret, we must try to understand, we must go as far as possible, but it is contained in the Gospel. And so, we better understand why Jesus says, "Abba." We better understand why, so that Jesus might say everything, there is this great and profound bond of intimacy.

Let us restate that the greatest suffering is being the source of suffering for those whom we love. Jesus draws Mary into the mystery of the Cross; and in His agony, the fact that He draws His mother into the mystery of the Cross is certainly what is most painful for Jesus--all the more as the mystery of the Cross suffices to save humanity fully and to totally realize the mission of salvation that the Father has entrusted to His Son.

If the Father wants Mary to suffer the mystery of the Cross, that Mary live the mystery of the Compassion, and if, with Mary and by her, it is the entire Church (and so each one of us) who is drawn into this same mystery, it is important, for it is this that enables us to understand the why of all our suffering. In the end, nothing else can explain our suffering. It is in light of the "Abba, Father." This is very important for us because, as long as we have not grasped it, we will always be scandalized by evil, by suffering, by everything that wounds our heart and impedes us from going further. Indeed, we will always be wounded, but we can surpass our wounds; they can be positive and not negative. A negative wound engenders gangrene, and the wound then gains ground. And a wound that gains ground, instead of elevating us, lowers us; it becomes a terrible weight. Whereas a wound that is borne in love, that is transformed by love, is already glorious, all the while remaining a wound. In glory it will remain as a fully glorious wound. But even as of this earth, because we are bound to the Risen Christ, a wound carried in love is victorious. This is even the proper of a Christian. This is the witness that we must bear as Christians in a world labored by suffering and injustice. The proper of a Christian is not to claim rights. Leave that to those who say or who want to be nonbelievers because they cannot do otherwise. Let them claim their rights as the only way out.

The Christian must go further because he is not based upon justice. From time to time before politicians he might be obliged to claim his rights, but he knows in those moments why he does it--he does it for other men and not for himself; he does it as a representative of other men, which is something completely different. And so he does it without violent passion, he does it in a light of divine wisdom.

Because they are engaged in the world, Christians at certain moments must "hit the streets." It is necessary; it cannot be otherwise because this is often the only thing that people understand today. This is sad. This proves that men are no longer intelligent, they only understand large demonstrations. They no longer understand man in his spiritual destiny, and it is no longer anything but efficiency which counts. The Christian can and must, at certain moments, manifest in this way that he is one with other men and cannot abdicate this solidarity.

If he is a hermit or even simply a religious it is different. He then has a different attitude. As a hermit or religious he is demonstrating all the time. By wearing the habit, we manifest all the time. It is not always amusing! We "hit the streets." We unceasingly demonstrate that we do not agree with many things (and it is because we are afraid of this that we no longer wear the habit; it is because we are afraid to manifest all the time that we hide ourselves). A religious as such shows that a Christian must love, that he must bear all wounds in love with Jesus, and in the light of "Abba, Father."

We must understand that this is the great light of the wisdom of God for us. It is a summit, a great light that is given to us. That is why I am insisting upon it.

Through the Word of God, the Holy Spirit educates us. For this reason, it is not insignificant that the first time the word "Abba" appears in Scripture and the only time that Jesus pronounces it is at the moment of the Agony. It is the moment when Jesus would like to spare His mother. He then uses the most intimate term, the most familiar term, to touch the heart of the Father, so that the heart of the Father be close to His. It always is, of course! But that it be so "affectively" (might I say), so that the Father hear His request, "Abba, remove this cup." It is beautiful to see this. Jesus did not say "Abba" for Himself but for Mary....

See the fraternal charity of the heart of Jesus: it is not for Himself. For Himself, He has fully accepted the Cross, it is for the Woman, and for the Church, and for us, because He knows our weaknesses. He knows the fragility of the creature. But the Father wants to draw His Beloved Son towards something that is greater. It is, again, "Abba" who does this. It is the Father in His tenderness for His Son. Jesus, who is the Son in the bosom of the Father, reveals this to us by calling the Father "Abba," that is, by wanting to attain to that which is most vulnerable in the Father.

What is most vulnerable in the Father? It is the Father as Father, the Father as source of fecundity. It is always inasmuch as we are source of fecundity that we are most vulnerable. We see this with a woman. It is inasmuch as she is source of fecundity that she is most vulnerable. It is for this reason that the devil attacks her when she is giving birth [17]. The devil understands that it is her greatest vulnerability.

Jesus, under the breath of the Holy Spirit, knows that the greatest vulnerability of the Father is that of being Father. By saying "Abba" He addresses the Father as Father, source of fecundity, and He asks Him to remove the chalice, to remove the cup as it is presented to Him; He asks that Mary be spared, that the Church be spared, that we be spared. But the Father, "Abba," the One who can ask everything of His Son wants something else. To a little child a father can ask everything. Inasmuch as he is "daddy" for the little child, he can ask him everything.

And so the Father, therefore, asks the Son to accept. He asks him this in silence. It is not an order; for the One who is "Abba" does not give orders (this is what is very particular with Him). God gives orders. God gives the law; whereas the Father as such, in the most profound aspect of his fatherhood, does not give orders. He asks a "going beyond" in love; He asks to go further in love. This is the proper language of the Father. He helps us to understand His total trust: "You are my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." This is indeed what happens at the Agony and we find this again in the Gospel of John with the triumphant entry into Jerusalem. "'Father, save me from this hour. No, for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify thy name.' Then came a voice from heaven, 'I have glorified it and I will glorify it again'" [18].

When Jesus says "Abba," the Father demands of Him that He go all the way, to the end of His trust, to the end of love. To go to the end of love is to ask that His mother be intimately united to the mystery of His Cross, to ask her to live the mystery of the Cross in a mystery of Compassion. It is the mystery of the Compassion that He asks of Jesus. Jesus must be the source of this mystery, freely, for Mary, for the Church, and for us. Jesus must draw Mary. "When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself" [19]. It is the attraction of the Father [20]. which passes through the wounded heart of the Son and it is Jesus who draws His mother. When He was on the wood, Jesus drew His mother in a way more powerful than at Bethlehem, more powerful than in His entire hidden life, and yet the little child Jesus must have drawn His mother so much! A little child draws his mother in a prodigious way. A little child, when he is intelligent, knows how to get everything he wants from his mother. When he grows up, it is different; but when he is a little child he can ask everything from his mother because he is little and he has all her trust.

Jesus at the Cross is smaller and poorer than at Bethlehem; and He draws His mother, He draws her because the Father wants it. It is "Abba," it is the Father, who manifests Himself at this moment through the greatest mystery of Jesus crucified drawing His mother. And Mary, in this attraction, offers herself totally, and through Mary it is the entire Church, it is ourselves....