God the Father

For class, we have to teach for 50 minutes on a topic that was quasi assigned to us. I drew "God the Father".

At first I was not too excited, but the closer my presentation time comes the more excited I am. One of the things that often bothers me is the absolute refusal of folks to refusal to call God Father-even though his Son did so.

Have you ever had to teach this lesson? At first I was going to start with the relationship between God and his bride the Church. And while this is true, I realized that I had to start a little further back than that. I had to start with the fact that God is neither gender, he is above and bigger than gender.

Which is where the trouble starts.

Have you ever read this passage in the Catechism and gone "hm. How do I get around this?"

239 By calling God "Father", the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority; and that he is at the same time goodness and loving care for all his children. God's parental tenderness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood, which emphasizes God's immanence, the intimacy between Creator and creature. The language of faith thus draws on the human experience of parents, who are in a way the first representatives of God for man. But this experience also tells us that human parents are fallible and can disfigure the face of fatherhood and motherhood. We ought therefore to recall that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: he is God. He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood, although he is their origin and standard: no one is father as God is Father.

If your kids are like some that I've had, they will take that and go "see?"

If you are looking for a good-though short-answer to this question, read this by Mark Brumley at Catholic.net . I came upon it in the archives and is concise answer with depth.