The Awareness of Jesus of the Unique Relationship Existing Between the Father and Himself

Jesus' self-revelation as the Son of God -is given a unique expression in the term "Abba, Father".

"Abba" expresses not only the traditional praise of God, "I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth" (cf. Mt 11,25), but as used by Jesus it indicates also his awareness of the unique and exclusive relationship that exists mutually between the Father and himself.

The term "Abba" not only manifests the mystery of the reciprocal bond between Father and Son, but summarizes in a certain way the whole truth about God's intimate life in the depths of the Trinity, that mutual knowledge of Father and Son which gives rise to the spiration of eternal Love.

The word abba is taken from the vocabulary of family life and speaks of the personal communion between father and son, between the son who loves the father and is in turn loved by him.

When Jesus used this word to speak of God, his hearers must have wondered and even been scandalized. An Israelite would not have used it even in prayer. Only one who regarded himself as Son of God in the proper sense of the word could have spoken thus of him and to him as Father. "Abba",. or "my Father", "Daddy", "Papà"!

" I thought you would call me, 'My Father' " (Jer 3,19) was fulfilled and surpassed by Jesus of Nazareth in speaking of himself in relation to the Father as he who "knows the Father", making use of the filial expression "Abba". He constantly speaks of the Father, and invokes the Father as one having the right to address him simply with the name, "Abba-my Father".

All this was noted by the Evangelists (Mk 14,36; cf. Mt 26,39-42; Lk 22,42; Jn 12,27).

In his youth he said: "Did you not know that I had to be in my Father's house?" (Lk 2,49). At the end of his life, he insists in asking God: "Father, the hour has conic; glorify thy Son that the Son may glorify thee" (Jn 17,1). His last words were, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" (Lk 23,46). After the resurrection he tells the disciples, "And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you (Lk 24,49).

An important moment of this revelation of the Father is the reply which he gives to his disciples when they asked him, "Teach us to pray" (cf. Lk 11,1). He then dictated to them the prayer which begins with the words "our Father" (Mt 6,9-13) or "Father" (Lk 11,2-4).

Through the revelation of this prayer the disciples discover their special participation in the divine sonship, of which the Apostle John will say in the Prologue of his Gospel, "To all who received him... (that is, to all who received the Word who "became flesh"), Jesus gave power to become children of God" (Jn 1,12). Rightly therefore. according to his own instruction, do they pray, "Our Father".

Jesus however always draws a distinction between "my Father" and "your Father". Again, after the resurrection he says to Mary Magdalene. "Go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God" (Jn 20,17).

In no passage of the Gospel do we read that Jesus recommended his disciples to pray with the word "Abba". That term refers exclusively to his persona relation of sonship with the Father. At the same time, however, the Abba of Jesus is in reality he who is also "our Father", as is clear from the prayer taught to his disciples. He is so by our participation or, better still, by our adoption: "God sent forth his Son... so that we might receive adoption as sons (Gal 4,4-5 2).

In this sense we are to understand the subsequent words of St. Paul in his Letter to the Galatians, "because we are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, saying, 'Abba, Father'!" (Gal 4,6), and also what lie wrote in his Letter to the Romans, "You did not receive a spirit of slavery... but a spirit of adoption through which we cry out, 'Abba, Father'!" (Rm 8,15).