GOSPEL MATTERS: The Unexpected Love of God the Father
By Dr Christine Wood, Director of the Office of Evangelisation & Catechesis
The evil in the world that afflicts us is so often due to other people inflicting their own misery and dysfunction upon us. Then we perpetuate the pattern by doing the same to others.
Psychologist Paul Vitz wrote a book entitled, Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism, in which he proposed the theory that the “atheist’s disappointment in and resentment of his own father unconsciously justifies his rejection of God.”
Put simply, Vitz argues that the likely effect of the loss of the father on children is to distance oneself from, and to doubt God, which leads in many cases to profound atheism.
The notable atheists analysed by Vitz include Hume, Hobbes, Nietzsche, Voltaire, Feuerbach, Sartre, Stalin, Mao, and Freud, all of whom had absent, abusive, or weak fathers. Much of the great misery of the twentieth century was influenced by the atheism of these thinkers.
As we enter into the Sacred Triduum of Holy Week, the holiest period of the Church’s year, we are presented with an alternate vision for human life. It’s not a utopian view of a world free from suffering.
Jesus voluntarily experiences the worst forms of misery and suffering to reveal God the Father’s love for each of us.
This alternate vision doesn’t falsely propose a “get out of jail free card” to avoid all suffering and death. Rather, in Jesus, we discover that God is present with us, alongside us, in our pain and sufferings.
At times he puts an end to it altogether. At other times, he bears the burden with us.
Christ bore our sins, diseases, miseries, and surrendered his physical freedom to be nailed to the cross. He even descended into the realm of the dead, the place which most of us fear.
He let all the dysfunction of evil and abuse wash over him. Christ reveals his profound solidarity with us in our pains and sorrows. We are not alone.
Love is the outpouring of oneself for the good of another. This was God the Father’s plan from the beginning of time: to share his life of love with us. This begins with Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.
We reject God through our sinfulness, our pride, our lusts, and selfish ambitions, and yet he still chases after us. The Father yearns for communion with each of us.
He even sends his Son, Jesus, to reveal this love to us. This is a God who acts in unexpected ways, and beyond the limits of human love.
Turn to him today. Receive his unconditional love. A blessed Triduum to you.