Divine filiation, the foundation of our spiritual life

The spirit of the Work is one which leads us to feel our divine filiation very deeply: carissimi, nunc filii Dei sumus (1 John 3:2); dearest ones, we are children of God, here and now. This joyful truth is the foundation of our whole spiritual life. It fills our inner struggle and our apostolic tasks with hope. It teaches us to get to know our Father God, to talk to him and love him with the trusting simplicity of children. Moreover, the very fact of being God’s children also leads us to contemplate, love and admire all the things that have come from the hands of God the Father and Creator.

The world is good

The world, my children, and everything that the Lord has created are good. Sacred Scripture teaches us that when the marvellous work of Creation was finished, when heaven and earth with their splendid array of creatures were complete,⁴God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good (Gen 1:31).

Original sin and Redemption: children of God

It was Adam’s sin that broke this divine harmony of Creation. But in the fullness of time, God the Father sent his Only-Begotten Son to the world to re-establish peace by redeeming man from sin, so that adoptionem filiorum reciperemus (Gal 4:5), we might receive adoption as children and share in God’s inner life; and so that this new man, this new branch of God’s children,⁵ would be able to free all creation from disorder, restoring all things in Christ,⁶ who has reconciled them with God.⁷

The call to collaborate with Christ

It is to this, my children, that we have been called; this must be our apostolic task, which, with its own spirituality and specific asceticism, fits beautifully into the one mission of Christ and his Church.

The Lord calls us to imitate him as well-beloved children of his – estote ergo imitatores Dei, sicut filii carissimi (Eph 5:1), be imitators of God as beloved children – cooperating humbly and fervently in God’s plan to join together again what is broken, to rescue what is lost, to straighten out what man has left in disorder, to bring to its true goal what has gone off course; to restore God’s harmony to all creation.