Jesus: The Gift of Father’s Love for the Human Person
A God outraged, offended, disobeyed, [and] … forsaken by man so much loved the whole human race that he gave it his only-begotten Son. (OOCC, XIII, p. 122; GIL, XXII, p. 83)
According to St. Vincent Pallotti, Jesus is the greatest gift of love the Father has given to humankind. The more he contemplated on the nature of this gifting, the more he found it difficult to comprehend. He wondered at the fact of God delivering his Son to the human person, even though he had been unfaithful to God. Thus, it was not human merit that was the reason for this gift. For St. Vincent, there should be no other reason for this gifting than the way God felt about the human person. Even though he had rejected God, a loving Father could not do the same to him. Though he was unworthy of the Father’s love, the Father decides to love him in his infinite mercy. The human person has become the object of the Father’s merciful love, despite his failure. Thus, Jesus was a gift of a loving Father to him. This gift was bestowed on him for his redemption. In offering Jesus to humankind for its redemption, the Father proclaimed his unending love for every person, and offered him an opportunity to come back to him through his Son Jesus. Jesus, by accepting the will of the Father for him, remedied human ingratitude, destroyed his unworthiness and presented himself as the way to the Father. In the process, Jesus gave the human person once again the opportunity to become a child of God, the Father. A person opens himself to the love of the Father by opening himself to Jesus, the Father’s gift of love.
Do I recognize the love of the Father for me as manifested in the person of Jesus? Do I acknowledge the gratuitous nature of the Father’s love for me? Am I open to the love of the Father for me by opening myself to Jesus, the love of the Father?
If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him? (Rom. 8: 31 – 32)