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From: Romans 8:14-17

Christians Are Children of God

[14] For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. [15] For
you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but
you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, "Abba! Father!"
[16] it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we
are children of God, [17] and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and
fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we
may also be glorified with him.

Commentary:

14-30. The life of a Christian is sharing in the life of Christ, God's
only Son. By becoming, through adoption, true children of God we have,
so to speak, a right to share also in Christ's inheritance--eternal
life in heaven (vv. 14-18). This divine life in us, begun in Baptism
through rebirth in the Holy Spirit, will grow under the guidance of
this Spirit, who makes us ever more like Christ (vv. 14, 26-27). So,
our adoption as sons is already a fact--we already have the
first-fruits of the Spirit (v. 23)--but only at the end of time, when
our body rises in glory, will our redemption reach its climax
(vv. 23-25). Meanwhile we are in a waiting situation--not free from
suffering (v. 18), groans (v. 23) and weakness (v. 26)--a situation
characterized by a certain tension between what we already possess and
are, and what we yearn for. This yearning is something which all
creation experiences; by God's will, its destiny is intimately linked
to our own, and it too awaits its transformation at the end of the
world (vv. 19-22). All this is happening in accordance with a plan
which God has, a plan established from all eternity which is unfolding
in the course of time under the firm guidance of divine Providence
(vv. 28-30).

14-15. Monsignor Escriva taught thousands of people about this
awareness of divine filiation which is such an important part of the
Christian vocation. Here is what he says, for example, in "The Way",
267: "We've got to be convinced that God is always near us. We live as
though he were far away, in the heavens high above, and we forget that
he is also continually by our side.

"He is there like a loving Father. He loves each of us more than all
the mothers in the world can love their children--helping us,
inspiring us, blessing...and forgiving.

"How often we have misbehaved and then cleared the frowns from our
parents' brows, telling them: I won't do it any more!--That same day,
perhaps, we fall again...--And our father, with feigned harshness in
his voice and serious face, reprimands us while in his heart he is
moved, realizing our weakness and thinking: poor child, how hard he
tries to behave well!

"We've got to be filled, to be imbued with the idea that our Father,
and very much our Father, is God who is both near us and in heaven."

This awareness of God as Father was something which the first
chancellor of the University of Navarre experienced with special
intensity one day in 1931: "They were difficult times, from a human
point of view, but even so I was quite sure of the impossible--this
impossibility which you can now see as an accomplished fact. I felt
God acting within me with overriding force, filling my heart and
bringing to my lips this tender invocation--'Abba! Pater!' I was out in
the street, in a tram: being out in the street is no hindrance for our
contemplative dialogue; for us, the hustle and bustle of the world is a
place for prayer" (S. Bernal, "Monsignor Josemaria Escriva de
Balaguer", p. 214).

Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text
taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries
made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of
Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock,
Co. Dublin, Ireland.

From: Matthew 28:16-20

Appearance in Galilee. The Mission to the World

[16] Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which
Jesus had directed them. [17] And when they saw him they worshipped
him; but some doubted. [18] And Jesus came and said to them, "All
authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. [19] Go
therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, [20] teaching them
to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always,
to the close of the age."

Commentary:

16-20. This short passage, which brings to a close the Gospel of St
Matthew, is of great importance. Seeing the risen Christ, the disciples
adore him, worshipping him as God. This shows that at last they are
fully conscious of what, from much earlier on, they felt in their heart
and confessed by their words--that their Master is the Messiah, the Son
of God (cf. Mt 16:18; Jn 1:49). They are overcome by amazement and joy
at the wonder their eyes behold: it seems almost impossible, were he
not before their very eyes. Yet he is completely real, so their fearful
amazement gives way to adoration. The Master addresses them with the
majesty proper to God: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been
given to me." Omnipotence, an attribute belonging exclusively to God,
belongs to him: he is confirming the faith of his worshippers; and he
is also telling them that the authority which he is going to give them
to equip them to carry out their mission to the whole world, derives
from his own divine authority.

On hearing him speak these words, we should bear in mind that the
authority of the Church, which is given it for the salvation of
mankind, comes directly from Jesus Christ, and that this authority, in
the sphere of faith and morals, is above any other authority on earth.

The Apostles present on this occasion, and after them their lawful
successors, receive the charge of teaching all nations what Jesus
taught by word and work: he is the only path that leads to God. The
Church, and in it all Christian faithful, have the duty to proclaim
until the end of time, by word and example, the faith that they have
received. This mission belongs especially to the successors of the
Apostles, for on them devolves the power to teach with authority, "for,
before Christ ascended to his Father after his resurrection, he [...]
entrusted them with the mission and power to proclaim to mankind what
they had heard, what they had seen with their eyes, what they had
looked upon and touched with their hands, concerning the Word of Life
(1 Jn 1: 1). He also entrusted them with the mission and power to
explain with authority what he had taught them, his words and actions,
his signs and commandments. And he gave them the Spirit to fulfill
their mission" (John Paul II, "Catechesi Tradendae", 1). Therefore, the
teachings of the Pope and of the Bishops united to him should always be
accepted by everyone with assent and obedience.

Here Christ also passes on to the Apostles and their successors the
power to baptize, that is, to receive people into the Church, thereby
opening up to them the way to personal salvation.

The mission which the Church is definitively given here at the end of
St Matthew's Gospel is one of continuing the work of Christ--teaching
men and women the truths concerning God and the duty incumbent on them
to identify with these truths, to make them their own by having
constant recourse to the grace of the sacraments. This mission will
endure until the end of time and, to enable it to do this work, the
risen Christ promises to stay with the Church and never leave it. When
Sacred Scripture says that God is with someone, this means that that
person will be successful in everything he undertakes. Therefore, the
Church, helped in this way by the presence of its divine Founder, can
be confident of never failing to fulfill its mission down the
centuries until the end of time.