Mutual Indwelling

  Let’s look at the ideal of Fatherhood: loving, protecting, supporting, kind, generous, advising, strong, etc.  Now read about our Father in heaven, Jas 1:7.

How’s that for divine Fatherhood?  Think of the parables.  For example, the friend waking his neighbor in the middle of the night, the father who feeds his children, and the father who welcomes his prodigal son.  Wowza.  Some of this is maybe out of reach for us mere humans.  We try. 

 If we try to imagine this ideal, we see a powerful relationship between a father and his child.  Remember Jesus saying “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father?”  Wrap your mind around that concept.  Can you see that the relationship between God the Father and God the Son is so intimate, so loving, so incredibly self-giving that they are “…in each other?”   This is called the doctrine of the mutual indwelling.  The mutual indwelling means that the Father has given Himself completely from all eternity to His Son, and the Son has from all eternity, reciprocated. 

Now pray the Our Father.  We have nothing to worry about.  Our Father will handle everything; and the proof is that He sent His only Son to suffer and die, for us.  What more could you want?    

h/t Brother Augustine Reisenhauer, O.P.