Living as Children of God: On Divine Filiation

The following meditation was recorded in front of a live audience. 

In this meditation, Fr. Peter Armenio reflects on the profound reality of God’s unconditional love for us as his sons and daughters. Drawing from the only prayer Jesus taught us —“Our Father”— Fr. Peter reminds us of its deeper meaning: a call to recognize God’s perfect love and his desire for our happiness. 

Fr. Peter emphasizes that our spiritual lives are rooted in the truth of our being children of God. Each of us is uniquely and intentionally created by God, custom-made with a soul that reflects his will and love. Our individuality glorifies him, and living as our most authentic, kind, and charitable selves is how we respond to this gift. 

Using the image of the Samaritan woman at the well, Fr. Peter illustrates how Jesus invites each of us, no matter our circumstances, into a personal relationship with him. By offering her the gift of “living water,” Christ reveals his desire to love and transform us through grace, making even the most broken among us vessels of his love and joy. 

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Transcript

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins, and the grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me. 

Well, before we get into ways to follow Christ, it's always important to have as our backdrop, the spirit behind the only prayer the Son of God made man composed. And we say it so often we may lose, without any ill will of course, the significance of the first phrase. Which essentially says, “When you pray, reflect that God loves you perfectly, unconditionally. When you pray, say ‘Our Father.’”  

And we could rhetorically, because we- Jesus answers our questions through the Scriptures, through inspirations in the after- the next life, directly, but indirectly right now. Lord, why was that your first phrase when you say, “say Our Father”? And I think we could safely say, “Because I want you to keep going deeper and deeper in the reality of God's unconditional love for you.” 

We've received the advice we've probably given that advice, “Be yourself”. And we all have insecurities, because the effects of Original Sin affect the soul, affect the body, and affect the emotions, or the psyche. You know, which is kind of like a gray area where, when does- when do we become spiritual and cease to become physical? Well, I would say, you know, there's the emotions and the psyche is sort of the transitional stage from physical to spiritual. Even though our soul is very defined and our body is very defined.

And we say, “be ourselves” but there's a lot of theology behind that. And why should I be myself? Maybe I want to be like somebody else. I wish I could sing better, or I wish I was a better writer. I wish I was a better athlete. I wish I was smaller. No, I don't want to be smaller. I wish I were taller. Well, we are not, and that's the first piece of revelation, that the human person is not considered, per se, a creature. Everybody's created. So yes, technically, everybody's a creature. 

But you see immediately that the human person is made in the image and likeness of God. And that the human person has a different relationship with God, and that is the relationship a daughter or a son has with God. Because we are made in his image and likeness. And what does that mean? And we see in the case of when he creates our first parents, it's kind of a template for creation, that he custom makes Adam. And super custom- you could tell your- your boyfriends or your friends, that you are more custom made than he was. He was made, you know, if he gets on your nerves, you could say, “Don't forget, you were made from the slime of the earth.” That's what, you know, at least the classical translations from the Hebrew. You were- Adam was made from the slime of the Earth, but not the woman. The woman was- Adam went into a deep sleep, and through Adam, God created woman. So, you can tell him that. 

But everybody's custom made. Your mom and dad are very happy to have you, but they didn't custom make you. They were part of it, but the one who custom made you was God. I mean, the soul is what determines the configuration of the body. The soul is the driving force, the spirit, literally, the spirit behind who that person is. The facial expressions, the configuration, the attitude, the sentiments, all are driven by the soul. Every single person here has been willed by God. 

Some may say, “Well, I was- I was not willed within the intimacy of a marriage.” Doesn't matter. You exist. You have been willed by God, whether it was a result of sinful behavior or not. You are willed by God. God wants you and he didn't have- and he plans out every daughter, every son he has. Everyone is custom made. I- this is what I want for my daughter. That's- that's the kind of daughter I want. This is the kind of son I want. And so being yourself, our best self, our kindest self, our most charitable self, but being our self gives most glory to God, because God wants us the way we are. 

This meditation is, in a sense, unfolding the light. And I think a major aspect of “I am the light of the world”, there's a lot of aspects, but the major aspect is that God loves us. That we are- and what does Jesus reveal through his Redemption, he makes it very explicit, “I have won you the grace to make you a daughter or a son of God.” And what's the next conclusion when we say that we are loved by God, that God wants us eminently happy. 

We are unhappy when someone we really love is unhappy. Those whom we love, we want them happy. So, if some sickness afflicts a loved one, a father, a mother, a brother or sister, a good friend, spouse, son, daughter, etc., well, we're affected by it. That removes our happiness. Why? Well, because part of- it's intimately linked with love, that God wants us happy. 

But there's always a hitch, okay? And this is very much, this is the spirit of the Catholic Church, but St. Josemaria very- honed in on this very much. In fact, he was a little bit of a- he was a good teacher and a little bit of and a showman as well. Maybe you heard it, maybe you haven't. I've told this often, but there was once upon a time a young priest was giving a one-day retreat, and he was giving the meditations, and the young guy said, “Well, I don't think I want to preach to you. I don't want you there, you know, because I'm – I’ll get self-conscious.” Reputation of holiness, founder of Opus Dei, writer, all those things, deep spirituality, so the young man didn't want to preach.

And so, he with Spanish bluntness, he said, “Listen, my son, you know, you know, this is not about you. This is about, you know, you have to be humble, and you got to give glory to God. You can't be conscious about who's going to approve you or not. You know, you just talk to the Lord in your meditation and don't- and you should not be worrying about what people think of you or if they're observing you.”

Well, easier said than done. Anyway, he starts preaching the poor guy, he says something, which is true. He says, “The foundation of the spiritual life is humility.” And he starts elaborating on why, and it was right. I mean, it wasn't wrong. Of course it is. And St. Josemaria, sits in the back there and says, “Oh, you're wrong, my son, sit down. Let me take over.”
And so, he starts to preach the meditation. The poor guy, well, he was sort of the guinea pig, he was the victim. And he says, “I- the root of our spiritual life is that we are children of God, that we're loved by God.” And he starts elaborating how- “and God wants the best for us. He- he's that perfect, loving Father who unconditionally loves us. That's the root of our spiritual life.” And then he said, “Okay, my son, come back and finish your meditation.”

So, don't do that to me, I haven't reached that level of humility yet. So, but anyway, I mean, right. I mean, he knew better than anybody else. Of course, the guy was right. It is the foundations. You don't have humility, you go nowhere. But he said, “Oh my gosh, this is a great teaching moment. I know he's going to be embarrassed, but it's really worth it. And people are going to tell this anecdote for years and years to come.” And he was right. I'm telling the anecdote. 

Um, those of you who were awake yesterday- you- yesterday you said, “I can't- I can't know anything about God directly. And yeah, fine yes, I buy that he loves me, although, but I need a little bit more data that he loves me.” And the elephant in the room is suffering, is the Cross, is disappointment, is failure. It's being down, not being in the best spirits, being in a dark night, on and on and on. Well, we'll address that. 

But let's- step number one. Well, Lord, how do I know? I mean, I need some data and-and the Lord gives us data, but not, not the data of a demonstration on a whiteboard. I was going to say a blackboard, but then I'm dating myself. When someone giggles- some young people laugh at that because I use the example of a blackboard, and I use the example of chalk. I know you don't know what a blackboard is anymore, or chalk, so a whiteboard. 

And we need to make a leap of faith. But St. John, who knew Our Lord in a very close way, because he leaned on his chest, and he was the youngest, and he was at the foot of the Cross. When he begins his 
Gospels, it’s a very curious way, he gives a monumental revelation. Something unheard of, literally unheard of. He tells us that there is another divine person, that God is not only father. And he uses a word. He uses the word “word”, and he says, “In the beginning, was the Word,” sounds like Genesis, “was the Word,” okay, the very curious way with the word, “the beginning was the Word,” you know, “and the Word was with God,” all right, so this is a special word, all right. He's unveiling this mystery here. “And the Word was God,” okay, there's a Divine Word, and he's not the Father. He's distinct from the Father. They're both God. I mean, there's only one God, but one is Father and one is Word. You know, “He was in the beginning with God, and he was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him and without Him was made nothing that has been made.” So he's, he is, you know- you just got to take on faith, because I need 10 classes to do this. So, anyway, we have to cover that we're loved by God here. 

Basically, a word is an id- is an expression of an idea, right? Stay with that thought. Whether it's in Chinese, whether it's in Swahili, whether it's in English, it's an expression of an idea that we all share. God, the Father, doesn't draw ideas from creation. I mean, he has one idea of himself. Just take it as- take it right now. And he and- and this Divine Word is called Word because he's going to communicate himself. And what does he communicate? What- what is the takeaway here, that Jesus is the revelation of how much God loves us, and that's why Jesus calls his apostles sons or daughters, or his disciples sons or daughters. 

That Jesus is the perfect revelation in a human form, of how much we are loved. And what is the- what are the four Gospels about? How much we're loved. And how does God reveal himself? As a little tiny baby. Even though he's the creator of the entire universe, that he worked on for 13 billion years. You- and why did he come as a baby? Because he says, “Listen, I really want you to come over here. I want to make it really easy for you to- to approach me and deal with me.” And God's love for me is infinite. And we ask the question, “Well, Lord, how do I discover it?”

We turn to the Gospel of St. John, the famous Samaritan woman who's had a very checkered past, and there's a number of details here. She was, unfortunately, it was an effective of Original Sin, women were very much second class, especially among the Gentiles, less so among the Jewish people. They were treated with a lot more dignity, but among the Gentiles, they were very much second class. They had no rights. They were used and dumped and all that. She- obviously she was poor, because she had to fetch water in a well. 

And, you know, you fast forward, which we’ll do a little bit more in the next meditation, that she married five times. It's a lot of marriage, because you were old by the by the time you were in your 30s. So, you know, I don't know, she started young, you know, and she was living with a guy already. So, her self-esteem was at an all-time low. I mean, people are people. Human nature is human nature. The way she's treated, the way she's viewed, and then she's not even a Jew. Because Samaritans were rejected by the Jews because they were seen as impure, because they were a mixture of Jew and Gentile. And she's sort of a paradigm of all of us. Jesus makes a move. He asks her for a favor. He's asking for a relationship with her, and he knows perfectly what he's dealing- who's who he's dealing with, and he'll reveal and she'll figure that one out too. 

But he doesn't want to show his cards, because he doesn't want to discourage her from talking to him. And Jesus said to her, “Give me to drink, for his disciples had gone away into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman, therefore said to him, ‘How is it that you, although you are a Jew, you ask drink of me, who am a Samaritan woman,’” so Jew, Samaritan, and woman, three strikes against her, and then her immoral life, that sweetens the pot. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. And what does Jesus say? “Jesus said to her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, who it is who says to you, give me to drink. You perhaps would have asked of him, and he would have given you living water.’”

I want to I want to make you happy, and he's going to keep pressing that point. “He whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst, but the water that I will give him shall become in him, a fountain of water springing to everlasting life. Everyone who drinks of this water,” her water, “of this water, will thirst again.” I want to help you. I love you. And so she's kind of taken up. I mean, this is- we just, I don't know we could fill in the blanks a little bit. This is the first time that she really felt loved. His demeanor and his, if you knew, I want to give you a gift, what's the gift? The gift is himself. 

Maybe this could help. I-uhm-we priests do a lot of funerals. He's answered me, I've asked Our Lord, I mean two things, I said, “Don't ever let me get used to visiting the sick.” Not that you get used to it, but you do it a lot, and do- “Never, never. Let me get used to doing a funeral or going to wake.” He's answering my prayers. I'm affected by it. I want to be affected by it. And but you know, at the same time, you got to cope with it, because if you fall apart every time you know you're- you're not gonna be able to serve people. So, you know just enough of compassion, maybe a tad choked up, not over doing it, just so you function. 

An older priest, very experienced, did 100 times more funerals than I did because he was the pastor of a parish. We were friends. And he called me up. He said, “Hey, listen, you know any possibility that you come over and join me for dinner?” And I said, “Well, let's see I gotta, I gotta work a few things out.” He said, “Listen, I just, I just need another I need a brother priest with me here, if you could do it. If you can't, I understand.” I said, “Well, this, I'll make it happen, but let me call you right back.” So, you know, I had to get some coverage and all that. And so, went over there and he said, “You know, I'm just, I just need someone who understands, you know, what I- my experience.” And he said, “I did a funeral,” and he said, “but it's a funeral of a stillborn.” He said, “You don't know, hard that was for me.” I just let him talk. He said the uhm, he said the parents were just shattered. And he said, how intense that fatherly and motherly love is. And we were, he was kind of elaborating that how a relationship of fatherhood and motherhood, because motherhood and fatherhood equally express, in a limited form, the fatherhood of God, humanly. 

I know he's called Father, but in a human way, motherhood and fatherhood both reveal the heart of God the Father in an equal way. And he said he was just shaken by the sorrow of the parents. He said “They're faith filled people. You know, we had a memorial. We had a wake. We, you know, we believe in that the child is in heaven, baptism of desire of the Church,” on and on and on. And what are- this relation drives love. 

I remember, and I feel almost little- I felt a little bit embarrassed. This, this lady was pregnant, and first pregnancy, and she was emotional, and, you know, I- she said, “Well, you know, don't- don't let my tears bother you, it’s hormones,” she said. That's fine. And she said, “You know, I'm afraid I'm not going to be a good mother because I don't feel like a mother yet.” And I said, “Well, you will.” And she said, “How do you know you're not- you'll never be a mother?” “I know, but I- my gut feeling is that you will.” And so, I said, “You know, it happens every time.” She said, “Well, I don't know if it's gonna happen to me, and I'm sad because I'm not- I don't, I don't feel that maternal emotion.” 

Anyway, so she relieved me of my anxiety over her lack of maternal sentiment, and she said, “When that baby was born, I was a changed person, you know, and I know I'm going to love that child like totally, perfectly. I've never experienced that kind of love, you know, seeing my child.” And my point is that this whole idea of relationship, best friend, sibling, spouse, daughter, mother, father, all these relationships we have drive love. “I'm heartbroken. That's my mother, that's my father.” And we can't fathom it. The only thing we could know is- as on a human level, if this is what human love is all about, we can't imagine what how much God loves us. 

And so, St. Josemaria in his celebrated book, The Way he says, “To realize that you love me so much, my God, yet, I haven't lost my mind.” And it's Jesus Christ’s actions, that culmin- that begin, it's kind of an embryonic Cross, at Calvary- excuse me, Bethlehem, he's cold, he's poor, he's in a cave. He's laying on wood, the manger. He's not surrounded by accolades. That's sort of the embryonic beginning of what will culminate on Calvary. They're all revelations of God's love for us. 

In a way, and I say this very respectfully, uh, part of winning someone over is to be a show-off. And what does the Lord do? What is God doing? Well, through the humanity of Christ, he's kind of showing off. “I'm going to show you what I think of you, and the grand finale is when I hang on the Cross for you. I'm going to tell you what you mean to me.”

How do I- but how do I grow in that sense of divine filiation? Well, here's the hitch. I need to at least desire this, to be completely centered on Christ. And then, until- and to- to incarnate his love for others, because who, what is God? God is unadulterated love. That's how he's revealed. He's revealed with this word agape, not eros. Eros is a reactionary love. “I love pizza. Wow, there's pizza. I love it,” okay, “Wow, that really looks good.” Or, you know, a chocolate cake, you probably - or a hunk of parmesan cheese, depends on your taste and a glass of wine, yeah, I like that a lot, wow. Florida, you know, especially today, whatever it is, a fun person. Or philia, I share- we share something in common where, you know, I gotta be careful, we're all Bears fans or Packers fans, or Notre Dame fans. I hope I cover everybody, or Colt fans. So, we share something in common- that's- God is not- that’s eros, philia. Storge is, you know, someone who's cute and kind of elicits our affection. You know, it's kind of baby talk, that's storge, that's C.S. Lewis. But agape is the word, the Greek word, the original word for God's love. And agape means a giving love. It's a love that gives, and as we give, we discover God's love, because God is love. 

So, I recall, where its’- it's John again, who's always elaborating on God's love for us. And we'll we have plenty of time to unfold this a bit. “He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me, and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” What are these commandments? Are they the 10 Commandments? No, I mean, it's part of it, but a small part. The commandments are Jesus himself, and what does he say? I mean, throughout the Gospel, how do we have a relationship with Him? You need to follow him totally. 

I mean, we have to live the pure form of the Catholic faith that the early Christians lived. Which was, I don't just go to Mass on Sunday, I don't just eke out a few devotions during Lent or Advent. I don't sing some Christmas songs- all those things are good. Or I'm not just for the right causes. You know, the right, important, indispensable, rights of the unborn, you know, openness to life, all those things. No, I am completely dedicated. I'm centered. It's about a person. It's about Jesus Christ. 

And it's not that God doesn't love us if we don't keep his commandments. It's that we start to discern, we start to perceive. Anyway, we want, we go to the Blessed Mother again, and we want to discover this, and we'll discover this to the degree that I give my heart to Christ, because Christ is the revelation of God's love for us. He humanizes it. He translates it so that I could see it. It's when he cries over his friend, when he brings someone back to life, when he cures tons of people, when he talks to this woman and said, “Listen, I want to give you a gift. I want to give you this water.” “God is my Father! If you meditate on it, you will never let go of this consoling consideration. Jesus is my intimate Friend (another re-discovery) who loves me with all the divine madness of his Heart. The Holy Spirit is my Consoler, who guides my every step along the road. Consider this often: you are God’s… and God is yours.” Intercede, Mother of God, that I take this point to heart.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations which you have communicated to me in this meditation. I ask your help to put them into effect. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.