Father
To know you and to know myself, I must say, "Father"… Your fatherliness is likened to the woman looking for a lost coin, to the shepherd searching for a strayed sheep, above all to the father running out to embrace the selfish, sin-soiled prodigal child…
You are not the impersonal maker of something outside you: not just a ruler and judge, exacting, assessing. You are Father giving life: Father and Mother of life, with the love of a father and mother combined. Shall a mother forget her child? Yet will you not forget.
Father, in giving me origin; in giving me life shared in your Son, who shared our life. Life given in such outpoured love; you so loved that you gave your only begotten Son, that we might live by his life.
Father, in sustaining me; in all your care over me; watching not to find fault and punish, but to provide for me, to guard and cherish me; knowing all my secret needs and loving to answer them so lavishly.
Father, in my final destiny. Not a harsh, exacting judge. Fear not little flock; it hath pleased your Father to give you a kingdom; the Father himself loveth you. Father, in fulfilling my life and love.
…if I realize one tiny little bit how much you love, with what tenderness and with what unfailing strength, with what unalterable fidelity, my past and present and future will be lightened by that love. My eyes and heart will be lifted up always. I shall live so uplifted, borne from life to Life within my Father's arm.
H. P. C. Lyons, S.J. in Praying Our Prayers
Father, I adore You
Lay my life before You
How I love You!
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