Look Who it Was Random video

Day 4 - Novena to the Heavenly Father for our Earthly Fathers HD

764 views · Published 9 June 2017 · 6:33 · Indexed 14 November 2026

Channel: Catholic Online · 2017 · Education

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My earthly father's favorite song was the Louis Armstrong classic "What a Wonderful World". 

Each Father’s Day since he died, in a melancholy mix of mourning and memories, I listen to that song and shed more than a few tears. 

As the years go by, its words and insights open for me even more, in their simplicity and wisdom.

My father understood that those words spoke to the things that really matter - once everything that pretends to matter is stripped away. 

As his life unfolded in those later years, when his congestive heart failure seemed to take its greatest toll, he loved the song and the sentiment it expressed even more. 

As the years have passed, my sense of loss has changed. 

But, as I so often tell grieving family members at funerals in my ministry as a member of the Clergy, a Catholic Deacon, the pain of loss on the memory of our deceased loved ones is just another manifestation of the eternal nature of love.

And, a reminder that love is stronger than death.

Beloved Father, through the life, death and resurrection of your only begotten Son, Jesus the Christ, we have become your adopted sons and daughters. 

Through Baptism we are now members of His Body, the Church, which is family. 

Our Savior Jesus taught us that “whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother.” 

We thank you that promise includes each one of us. 

As members of the family of Jesus we now turn to you in prayer, as OUR FATHER, ABBA.

In Luke’s Gospel, we read that Jesus responded to a question posed by His disciples: 
 
Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples. He said to them, - When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test. (Luke 11:1-4)

From His response, we learn the prayer we were taught as children, the Our Father. However, Jesus is revealing a framework for our living in a constant communion with the Father. 

Christian prayer is living in an ongoing communion with the Father, who communicates Himself to us completely in His Son. 

When we live in this communion, life becomes a classroom where we learn the truth about who we are in Jesus. 

Through prayer, we receive new glasses through which to see the landscape of life. Darkness is dispelled by the light of the Holy Spirit. We may stumble and even, at times, fall back into living at odds with God's plan. However, through prayer we find the Way back home to the Father. 

Through prayer, we begin to comprehend what it means to be partakers of the divine nature. (2 Peter 1:4) 
Our life becomes a participation in the inner life of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Though that participation will only be complete when we are with Him in the fullness of His embrace - in Resurrected Bodies in a New Heaven and a New Earth - it begins even now - through prayer.  

Today, we pray Dear Father, Abba, 
for all our earthly fathers:

For our Grandfathers 
and our Great grandfathers
For Adoptive fathers
For Expectant fathers
For Foster Fathers
For Stepfathers
For all Spiritual fathers

Watch over them all, 
give them the grace they need to be faithful to their vocation.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, equip them to manifest your love to the men and women of this increasingly fatherless age 

Men and women who desperately need to find you as their Heavenly Father and take their place in the Family of God, the Church of Your Beloved Son.

Now Dear Father, I specifically bring to you now my own personal intention:  

[ADD YOUR SPECIFIC INTENTION HERE]

And as the Family of God, let us join together in the words our Savior taught to  us
Our Father
Who Art in Heaven
Hallowed be Thy Name
Thy Kingdom Come
‘Thy Will be Done
On Earth as it is in heaven
Give us this Day, Our Daily Bread
And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil
For Yours is the Kingdom, and the power and the glory, now and forever, Amen

May the Blessing of Almighty God, 
Father, Son and Holy Spirit 
come upon you and remain with you forever

AMEN

To learn more about this Novena: http://www.catholic.org/prayers/novenas/novena.php?id=5 

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