Letters

Supernatural order (letter)

Fr G.H. Duggan SM

Contents - Mar 2001 - Buy a copy now Editorial: ACU theology: prompt action needed - Peter Westmore New cardinals to continue John Paul II's agenda - AD2000 Report News: The Church Around the World Seminary numbers up in orthodox US dioceses - Michael S. Rose How Archbishop Pell will implement Statement on Women in the Church Elizabeth Anscombe, R.I.P. - Robert P. George ACU theology: how orthodox, how accountable? - Michael Gilchrist Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter ordinations How monastic life can reinvigorate the Church - Fr Peter Knowles OP Cardinal Ratzinger on 'Third Secret' of Fatima What we must teach our children: Archbishop Chaput - Archbishop Charles J. Chaput New Catholic radio program to start in WA The surprise Cardinal: Fr Avery Dulles SJ - Zenit News Service Letters: Euthanasia in S.A. (letter) - Errol P. Duke Letters: Science and Christianity (letter) - Scot Chaston Letters: Enneagram workshop (letter) - Br Con Moloney CFC Letters: Church doctrine? (letter) - Frank Mobbs Letters: Anti-Catholicism (letter) - Frank Bellet Letters: Old liturgical books (letter) - Frank Carleton Letters: Latin (letter) - Karmenu Attard Letters: Supernatural order (letter) - Fr G.H. Duggan SM Letters: Misguided compassion (letter) Letters: G.K. Chesterton (letter) - Nancy McKelson Letters: EWTN tapes (letter) - John Lovegrove Letters: Vocations and orthodoxy (letter) - John Schmid Letters: Third Rite in Toowoomba (letter) - Mark Power Letters: Poem to Our Lady - Marion Craig Letters: Appeal from India (letter) - Kevin L. Fernandes Letters: Catholic education (letter) - Daniel Bryce Letters: Boredom? (letter) - Josephine Landsberg Books: Come To The Father: An Invitation to Share the Catholic Faith, Aidan Nichols OP - Christopher Quinn (reviewer) Books: Streams of Living Water: Autobiography of a Charismatic Leader - Anthony Cappello (reviewer) Books: Why the hopes of the Council Fathers of Vatican II are yet to be realised - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Books: Why I Am A Priest: Thirty Success Stories, ed. Boadt, Hunt - Katie Lindorff (reviewer) Books: The Pange Lingua Hymnal, compiled by Paul Newton - Fr Gregory Pritchard PP (reviewer) Reflection: Liturgy in the true spirit of Vatican II - Ralph McInerny

Some women have been telling us that they experience difficulty in addressing God as "Our Father". This difficulty may be caused by their having accepted the myth of "patriarchy". But it is more likely due to a failure to distinguish between the natural order and the supernatural.

God, the Heavenly Father, is our Creator, and all human beings in the natural order are His children, related to Him as children to the father in a human family. But we Christians are His adopted children. We are, in the words of St Peter, "partakers in the divine nature" (2 Peter 1: 4) sharing in the life of the Blessed Trinity.

When we address the Father in prayer, we are linked with the Eternal Son, as members of the Mystical Body, of which He is the head. Making His words our own, we address the First Person of the Holy Trinity as "Abba, Father", the person from whom He receives eternally the fullness of the Divine Nature, with all its infinite perfections.

When, in humble obedience to Christ's precept we say, "Our Father", our spirit is moving on a level infinitely above that of any human relationship, totally free of such imperfections as it may imply.

FR G.H. DUGGAN SM
Silverstream, New Zealand

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 14 No 2 (March 2001), p. 13