Devotion to God our Almighty Father: Appropriateness and doctrinal value

“In John’s Gospel, Jesus, in His conversation with the Samaritan woman, announces a new devotion: ‘The hour is coming and now is, when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father also seeks such to adore him’” (Jn 4:23; Galot, 1999).

“Devotion to the Father began with Jesus. How can it not be ours too? . . . For how many Christians is the Father, today, a living person? . . . [Meanwhile] preachers and spiritual directors who have spread it, have pointed out with joy the profound effects of purification and sanctification which it brings forth in souls. It seems as though there is a special grace attached to it. Why? . . . Perhaps because spreading this devotion means continuing the Savior’s mission itself.”

“Religion wasn’t a collection of negative prohibitions or interdictions; it was a way of life, a life ‘of fellowship with the Father and with the Son,’ a family life, a life which involved relationships with living persons . . . Why, therefore, do these sublime truths remain a dead letter? Very often it is because we forget the Father . . . God not only has the right to be honored as Creator. What characterizes the Christian religion is the right God has to be honored as Father . . . a fundamental right of God which is too often violated by Christians themselves: the right to be loved and adored as Father – as our Father . . . [despite the fact that] the essential characteristic of devotion to the Father is ‘an infinite tenderness.'”

Meanwhile, “the word ‘devotion’ is not to be understood in the restricted sense which the faithful usually give it – that of a particular form of worship, which is addressed to a particular saint rather than another, but rather in the broad and theological sense, devòvere, to devote oneself to – to consecrate – to offer – to give oneself entirely. Devotion to the Father is a regular disposition of the soul, a disposition capable of identifying oneself not only with the actions of the virtue of religion, but in all the actions of the life of God’s children. It is a fundamental state for which the soul, recognizing Jesus’ dispositions and religion as their own, regarding His Father – particularly His filial love –consecrates itself filially to God the Father, who by Christ’s incarnation and by the grace of adoption has become our Father.”

References

1. Galot, J. (1999). The Mother of God. 
2. Guerry, Msgr. E. 1940. Let us go to the Father. Milano, Italy: Societa Edizione Vita e Pensiero.