Abba, Father

GAL 4:4-7

Brothers and sisters:                                                                   
When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son,
born of a woman, born under the law, 
to ransom those under the law, 
so that we might receive adoption as sons.
As proof that you are sons, 
God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, 
crying out, "Abba, Father!"
So you are no longer a slave but a son, 
and if a son then also an heir, through God.

Happy 2018!   It has to be the greatest feeling in the world to know that YOU are loved.  I don't mean that God loves all of  His children, although He does. No, I mean he loves you, just as you are right now today on this first day of the New Year. He stands ready to be your father, no strike that, just like Paul says, he is your Abba, which is your daddie.  It is a term of endearment that children used.  It means the person who personally loves and protects them and who knows each of them just as he knows himself. 

Start 2018 with this in mind.  Your father is there ready to go with you every step of the way this year.  There will be no issue so great that you and He cannot work out together.   You may be close to Him now, but just you wait, by the end of this year you will be even closer, you will understand Him better and your vision of His plan for you will become even clearer tor you.  He will strengthen you when you need to be strengthened. He will wipe your tears when you need to cry and tell Him how you have failed.  He will raise your spirit up and assure you that your failure is part of His plan and you just have to wait to see the seeds you planted take root and grow.

There will be many challenges ahead of us in this year of 2018 and much room for personal growth in our love of the God and man.  Our Abba, our daddy will see us through all of it and we will help make His kingdom come.  

💔 Please join my new prayer ministry for the Poor Souls in Purgatory.  There is no paperwork to fill out, you don't even have to tell me that you joined, just promise to pray at least once a day for the Poor Souls in Purgatory and once a month say the prayer of St. Gertrude the Great and offer up one communion for the soul who has been in Purgatory the longest and has no one else to pray for them.  I promise, it will take only a minute or two out of your busy day but it will mean so much for our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, friends, and relatives who just might be there.  You loved them in life, pray them into eternal life!  Here is the prayer of St. Gertrude the Great:  

According to tradition, St. Gertrude the Great was told by Our Lord that the following prayer, each time she piously recited it, would release 1,000 souls (or a vast number) from their suffering in purgatory:

“Eternal Father,
I offer You the most precious blood
of thy Divine Son, Jesus,
in union with the Masses said
throughout the world today,
for all the Holy Souls in Purgatory,
for sinners everywhere,
for sinners in the universal Church,
for those in my own home,
and in my family. Amen.”