Pater

“ Pater’s hands it becomes very real to us indeed, and he shows us how, behind the perfection of a man’s style, must lie the passion of a man’s soul. ”

“ For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power by his Spirit unto the inward man. ”

“ A third argument for our prayer, is God's paternal tenderness, which is thus illustrated. “If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone?—If ye, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children; how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” ”

“ Certain priests, men whose countenances bore a deep impression of cultivated mind, each with his little group of assistants, were gliding round silently to perform their morning salutation to the god, raising the closed thumb and finger of the right hand with a kiss in the air, as they came and went on their sacred business, bearing their frankincense and lustral water. ”

“ That first, early, boyish ideal of priesthood, the sense of dedication, survived through all the distractions of the world, and when all thought of such vocation had finally passed from him, as a ministry, in spirit at least, towards a sort of hieratic beauty and order in the conduct of life. ”

“ He who sees Me, sees the Father.’ For the Son is the natural image of the Father, unchangeable, in everything like to the Father, except that He is begotten, and that He is not the Father. The Father begets, being unbegotten. ”

“ O Lord, only begotten Son, and Holy Spirit, Lord God, the Lamb of God, the Son of the Father, who takest away the sins of the world, receive our prayer. Thou who sittest at the right hand of the Father, have mercy upon us, for Thou only art holy; Thou only art Christ, Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father. ”

“ O ALMIGHTY Lord, and maker of heaven and earth, infinite in majesty, is it possible that thy love and goodness for us should be so great as to suffer such poor worms as we are to call thee Father? O, make us ever dutiful children to such a Parent. O most holy Father, who dwellest in heaven, raise my heart to thee, and teach me, by thy interior grace, to pray to thee with attention, devotion, humility, and faith. ”

“ One who stands as a spiritual parent to another is his “father,” e.g. godfather, or in the title of bishops or archbishops, Right or Most Reverend Father in God. The pope is, in the Roman Church, the Holy Father. In the Roman Church, father is strictly applied to a “regular,” a member of one of the religious orders, and so always in Europe, in English usage, often applied to a confessor, whether regular or secular, and to any Roman priest, and sometimes used of sub-members of a religious society or fraternity in the English Church. ”

“ It is on account of this signification of the term Father, as designating especially the Divine Goodness or Love, that the Prayer commences with the expression, "Our Father;" in order to convey the idea that all prayer is directed to the Lord, as a Being of love, and that from his love all requests are granted and all blessings flow. We have indeed a general view of the same truth, when we think of the phrase merely in its literal sense,—the term "father" conveying to our minds the idea of one who loves us as his children, and wishes to bless us. ”

“ It is this, that we have a Father in heaven; not a mere Maker, not a mere Master, but a Father. All turns on that one Gospel of all Gospels, your Father in heaven. For our Lord seems to me to say, ‘Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or drink, or wear. ”

“ The Father is living love, and this life of the Father is in his Sons. And the spirit of the Father is in his Son's sons—mortal men. When all is said and done, the Father idea is still the highest human concept of God. ”

“ I confess to thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones. Yea, Father, for so it hath seemed good in thy sight.
22 - All things are delivered to me by my Father; and no one knoweth who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and to whom the Son will reveal him.
23 - And turning to his disciples, he said: Blessed are the eyes that see the things which you see. ”

“ Yes, Reverend Mother, and the son is like his father, tall, strong, courageous, with all the virtues, all the abilities. But for all that, one whom he loves has left him, and will give herself to the religious life. ”

“ The Father comes down to you as a personality only through the divine Sons of the Eternal Son. And you attain the Father by this same living way; you ascend to the Father by the guidance of this group of divine Sons. ”

“ Believe me, my dear son, you too have a Father,—a good and powerful Father. He dwells above us, in the depths of the blue heavens, but he is also everywhere upon the face of the earth. He sees you always, and always takes care of you. ”

“ FATHER. Son, it shall not be thus, by my counsel.
SON. I trust ye will not me otherwise compel.
FATHER. If thou were as wise as I have judged thee,
Thou wouldest in this case be ruled by me.
SON. To follow the contrary I cannot be turned;
My heart thereon is stifly fixed.
FATHER. What, I say, about thine own destruction?
SON. No, no, but about mine own salvation:
For if I be helped, I swear by the mass,
It is only marriage that brings it to pass. ”

“ He is our Father; and hence the Scriptures tell us to pray, "Our Father, who art in heaven." Paul says, "We have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?" ”

“ Oh, how justly we call him Father, who is so many times ready to receive us, when we sin, into the same favour as before, that he may at length admit us also to the glory, which is the inheritance of the sons of God! ”

“ By these words of Holy Scripture, he continually invites every one to come to him that stands in need of mercy. How then canst thou imagine that He will forsake thee in the time of trouble, who endured so many and great miseries for thy sake! It is for this that God calls himself our Father. Now we know that a father is more compassionate and tender than a master: so that he would not have us dread him, but love him as a dutiful child does an indulgent father. ”

“ Think: the Father of Jesus, with whom, in all his knowledge and all his suffering, the grand heart was perfectly, exultingly satisfied,—that Father he calls our Father too. He shares with his brethren—of his best, his deepest, his heartiest, most secret delight, and makes it their and his most open joy: he shares his eternal Father with us, his perfect God with his brethren. ”

“ The Father was ever, and the Son was ever, and the Holy Ghost was ever One Almighty God. He is the Father, who was neither born of nor created by any other. He is called Father, because he has a Son, whom he begot of himself, without any mother. ”

“ But in connection with the subject of plural marriage, the Priesthood is intimately interwoven. It is the Priesthood which produces the peace, harmony, good order, and everything which make us as a people peculiar, and for which our Territory has become remarkable. It is that principle—the Priesthood, which governs the heavenly hosts. God and Jesus rule through this power, and through it we are made, so far as we have received it and rendered obedience to its mandates, like our heavenly Father and God. He is our Father and our God; He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ”

“ If the Father doeth nothing without the Son, nor the Son without the Father, will it not follow, that we must say that the Father also was born of the Virgin Mary, the Father suffered under Pontius Pilate, the Father rose again and ascended into heaven? ”

“ It will help you greatly, my dear, to take the Bible and Concordance and go through the words 'Love' and 'Father;' then you may see and 'believe the love that God hath for us.' He has tried very hard—has written it plainly all through the Book to make us understand that he is truly our Father. Call it mother love if that makes it plainer to you: think that he feels toward you as your mother did; Father, as God uses it, stands for father and mother both. ”

“ The Father is the God over all; Christ is the only-begotten God, the beloved Son, the Lord of glory; the Holy Ghost is the Comforter, who is sent by Christ, land taught by Him, and proclaims Him.
Of What Character He Ought to Be Who is Initiated. ”

“ The very emblem of fatherhood and sonship might teach us that that depends upon the Father's will and the Father's heart. The Spirit's testimony has for form my own conviction: and for substance my humble cry, ‘Oh Thou, my Father in heaven!’ Brethren, is not that a far truer and nobler kind of thing to preach than saying, Look into your own heart for strange, extraordinary, distinguishable signs which shall mark you out as God's child—and which are proved to be His Spirit's, because they are separated from the ordinary human consciousness? ”

“ Let us say to Him, Lord, to whom we have learnt to say Father. We make bold to say this, because Himself willed it; if only we so live that He may not say to us, “If I am a Father, where is mine honor? ”

“ In the earliest beginnings of life, the parent—to speak with reverence—stands to his child, in a very peculiar sense, for and in the place of God. We gain the conception of the Father in heaven first from our experience of fatherhood on earth; and so it may be said of this commandment, in a sense in which it cannot be said of any other, that it is the foundation of all religion. ”

“ They think of fathers, like too many among themselves, proud, and arbitrary, selfish and cruel. They say in their hearts, even such fathers as we are, such is God. Therefore, they shrink from God, and turn from Him to idols, to the Virgin Mary, or Saints, or any other beings who can deliver them (as they fancy) out of the hands of their Father in heaven. ”

“ Father, feeling in myself an ardent desire to sacrifice myself to God, as a victim in union with our Lord Jesus Christ, immolated on our altars, and to spend my life in perpetual adoration of His divine Sacrament, under the observance of the rule of our glorious Father Saint Benedict, I humbly ask of you the grace of the holy habit. ”

“ For they who seek Him after the true search, praising the Lord, shall be filled with the gift that comes from God, that is, knowledge. And their soul shall live; for the soul is figuratively termed the heart, which ministers life: for by the Son is the Father known. ”

“ God is the model—the pattern Father. Paul says that “of Him every fatherhood in heaven and earth is named.” You can look at the tender relations that bind the best of fathers to the best of sons here on earth, and I tell you they but faintly illustrate 40the tender relations that bind God to you. He is the one perfect Father. He is perfect in LOVE. “No earthly father loves like Thee, no mother half so mild.” Mothers may forget their children but God will never forget us. ”

“ They are discouraged and kept from prayer by the thought that they cannot come to the Father as they ought or as they wish. Child of God! listen to your Teacher. He tells you that when you go to private prayer your first thought must be: The Father is in secret, the Father waits me there. Just because your heart is cold and prayerless, get you into the presence of the loving Father. As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth you. Do not be thinking of how little you have to bring God, but of how much He wants to give you. ”

“ O Most loving Father, in union with that love wherewith thy Son offered himself once upon the cross, and now offers himself to thee upon the altar, I offer him to thee for the welfare and salvation of all thy whole Church. ”

“ And I humbly beseech you, most loving father, and Christ’s servants who are with you, to intercede fervently with the righteous in behalf of my frailty; and to admonish those, to whom you shall show my work, to do the same. Fare you well, my good and ever loving father in Christ. ”

“ There is no question that the Father is greater. No one can doubt that the Father is greater than the Son, in honor, dignity, splendor, majesty and in the very name Father, the Son himself testifying, He that sent Me is greater than I. And no one is ignorant that it is Catholic doctrine that there are two persons of Father and Son ”

“ Our high Father, God Almighty, which is Being, He knew and loved us from afore any time: of which knowing, in His marvellous deep charity and the foreseeing counsel of all the blessed Trinity, He willed that the Second Person should become our Mother. ”

“ Our father, like unto Abraham of old, sits as a great High Priest, surrounded by his family on earth, which now numbers over five score and ten, and like the ancient patri- archs, is waiting the time when the Lord will call him up, to become a God in eternity, not merely to reign over hundreds, but thousands and tens of thousands. ”