What image of God did Jesus of Nazareth have? We can answer, in summary, that Jesus first of all walked coram Deo, before God, in a profound relationship with Him through prayer, Jewish religious practices, and liturgical festivities (well highlighted, for example, in the Fourth Gospel). He sought, in particular, the will by listening to the Scriptures, events, and also through the people he met inside and outside Israel. He then lived cum hominibus, that is, he was fully in solidarity with the men of his time, his culture, and his environment. Third aspect, he directed the meaning of his life pro hominibus, that is, in favor of men, doing his utmost for them without discrimination of faith or culture. If we then open the Pauline epistolary we come across a fourth very singular aspect. Paul, eight times talk about his faith. His relationship with God was characterized by faith. Until not long ago it was thought that, from his conception, he had a very clear vision of all things in God, so it was impossible to speak of faith. The great theologian and supporter of this thesis was Saint Thomas, whose merits are undisputed. However, a thinker like Von Balthasar, whose orthodoxy is equally impeccable, observed: «Jesus makes our faith possible, the faith which must not abolish but perfect from within the entire Old Testament attitude towards God (cf. Mt 5 ,7). This can only happen if Jesus not only brings about this improvement as a cause, but first experiences it as a prototype, and therefore receives from God the saving power to express and impress upon us this lived exemplarity. Jesus, as a man, never saw God (cf. Jn 1:18), except at Baptism and Transfiguration, where he heard his voice. His relationship was normally mediated. One of these mediations was its Jewish religious tradition, as we mentioned above. In today’s Gospel, we see that he addresses God calling him “Father”. Very probably he uses the customary appellation of Jewish piety Abi/Abinu (“My Father” / “Our Father”). Marco, not denying this hinterland, will however say that in Gethsemane he called God with the most familiar, most domestic, and most intimate term: Abba. Jesus therefore starts from his tradition, assumes it fully, and then brings it to completion. But let us again note, to return to Mt 11:25-30, how he associates a typical formula of the biblical world with the term “Father”: “Lord of heaven and earth”. In short, Jesus knows how to unite in himself the tenderness of the Father and the lordship of the Creator of the world, the proximity and transcendence of God.

But why does Jesus raise this song of praise? If we go to the text we see that the motivation is given by two verbs: «you have hidden», «you have revealed». God has hidden from the wise and revealed to the little ones “these things”, says Jesus, that is, the mystery of the Kingdom. Said so flatly, however, nothing is understood. How is it possible that Jesus praises the Father because he hides from some and reveals to others? We are in the presence of a biblical technique, that of contrast: to reveal the paradoxical nature of divine action, Jesus affirms that it was revealed to the little ones and hidden from the wise. In reality God has manifested himself to everyone, but to underline that he had a particular gaze towards the most marginalized, it is stated that he “hid himself” from the learned. In a word: Jesus is amazed at God. He observes his historical action well and notes that the Father is not pleased only with those who live the Torah in its entirety but also with those who cannot observe it in all its meticulousness due to ignorance . In fact, the little ones/poor people ignored the Scriptures and therefore certainly could not live them in their entirety. For this they were considered cursed by the religious elites. Well, the divine initiative is in favor of these ignorant/accursed. And Jesus, in his prayer, manifests his adherence to this complacency of the Father because he finds himself in this feeling. In a word: God, in his free initiative, loves to reveal himself even to the undeserving.

Commentary by b. Sandro Carotta, osb Abbazia di Santa Maria – Praglia (Italy)

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves,Prinknash Abbey