"Father"

We begin with the salutation "Father." Reinhold Schneider writes apropos of this in his exposition of the Our Father: "The Our Father begins with a great consolation: we are allowed to say "Father." This one word contains the whole history of redemption. We are allowed to say "Father," because the Son was our brother and has revealed the Father to us; because, thanks to what Christ has done, we have once more become children of God" (Das Vaterunser, p. 10). It is true, of course, that contemporary men and women have difficulty experiencing the great consolation of the word father immediately, since the experience of the father is in many cases either completely absent, or is obscured by inadequate examples of fatherhood.

We must therefore let Jesus teach us what father really means.

Pope Benedict XVI. Jesus of Nazareth, p. 135-6.