Wednesday in the Twenty-Seventh Week of Ordinary Time

Jesus wants us to call God our Father, and not just Father, but Daddy, which is the meaning of the Hebrew and Aramaic word “Abba”.  

Once I was with other students at an open-air restaurant in old Jerusalem.  As we were eating a young Jewish girl ran up to her father to ask for something.  She leaned affectionately against her father, and said, “Abba.”  She said it with such tenderness and confidence.  I could feel the love flowing between them. That’s how Jesus wants us to pray, with familial love, leaning on our Father who wants to give us good gifts, especially the gift of the Holy Spirit who will wipe away every tear from our eyes, when death will be no more, nor pain, nor crying any more, on the day when all our prayers will be answered.