A story is told of a young boy in an Israeli airport who ran ahead of his father, and when the father caught up with him, he scolded his son. The father reminded the son that even though the father’s tone was severe he was still to address him as 'Abba,' using a word of respect that has come down to us this day; as a word of authority, intimacy.
Jesus would have addressed his father Joseph using this word. The scriptures reveal why we continue to call God, Abba. We also have an intimate relationship with him but one still waiting to be discovered.
Today with the tools available to us, we can find out all kinds of things about our relationship with ancestors we never knew we had. It is said that we now have access to 20 billion pieces of information available to discover next of kin.
The reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Roman revealed a truth about our relationship with God. God’s Spirit resides in us and because of this we are his adopted sons and daughters. This being so we also can call God Abba, Father, and also inherit from him a room in our Father’s house.
People who discover long lost relatives and facts about themselves do so after painstaking inquiries, visit to distant cemeteries and sometimes end up disappointed.
Searching to know God and to better understand the Spirit within us is the work of a lifetime requiring effort, perseverance, and prayer.
St. Paul reminded us that there is also a contrary spirit which manifests itself in ways we do not want. Still, we run the race to win the prize. We should aim to be diligent, seeking and searching to discover the truth of who and what we possess as God’s sons and daughters.
Some followers of Jesus encounter hardship and suffering along the way. Like the blind man and cripple women in the gospel these past two days, they cry out for mercy, someone who will hear their cry and help them. Mercy is less about almsgiving or sympathy and more a cry for help.
Jesus, I want to see. We have the power to help people see, to respond to the cry of the poor.
Let us search and discover the Spirit within us. It will be the Spirit that enables us to reach out and help others. To resist the search runs the risk of simply allowing Jesus to be an image on a holy card.
