In conversation with a friend several years ago, who had become a new father, I asked him a hard but simple question, “What is the gift that fatherhood gives you?” I wasn’t trying to be funny because Father’s Day was coming up and I was hoping to get some homily material to share with God’s people.
His response was equally hard and simple. He shared that the gift he felt most deeply at this time in his young family’s life was hope. We had a wonderful and long conversation about hope and what he meant by it and it did give me some great homily material.
Which leads me to this quote from Pope Benedict XVI from his Encyclical “Saved in Hope.” As a father, a protector of child and family, men are called into a distinct hopefulness that sends them forth into the world in love of God and family.
“Love of God leads to participation in the justice and generosity of God towards others. God requires an interior freedom from all possessions and all material goods: the love of God is revealed in responsibility for others.” (#28 Spe Salvi)
We know that the trap of the working father (and mother) is often to begin to focus more and more on the “work” and the monetary gains of “work” at the detriment of family. God wants us to work hard. God desires that we be as successful as we can be in our life. But God also wants us to be family. God also desires us to grow in the unity of family and discovering this balance is always a challenge no matter what vocation of life we live.
On this Father’s Day weekend we look in a special way at the gifts that fathers share with us and how they are called to the “interior freedom” that allows them to live full the “responsibility for others” both for there wife and children.
My friend, whom I mentioned above, in our conversation mentioned how the birth of their child gave an added purpose to the work that he did, calling him to greater diligence and focus daily to provide for the growing family, he also noted though, how his desire to be at home with his wife and child also invited him into a more balanced view of living, especially in the not taking too much of his work home with him as he sought to share the responsibility of raising the newborn child.
Fast forward several years, to the family now with 4 children, the eldest getting ready for Jr. High and the youngest leaving behind diapers (at least that is the hope) in the near future. Over a beer and some hectic times in the house we began the same discussion as once more I was seeking some fresh perspective and insight for Father’s Day. I had reminded him of the “hope” he saw at the beginning of his journey as a father and he, with bride at his side, said the same thing but that the hope became tempered with the struggles, the sufferings and sacrifices of life. Unemployment, sickness, family deaths and children and marriage struggles. Pope Benedict once more shares with us, “Certainly in our many different sufferings and trials we always need the lesser and greater hopes too—a kind visit, the healing of internal and external wounds, a favorable resolution of a crisis, and so on. In the lesser trials these kinds of hope may even be sufficient. but in truly great trials, where I must make a definitive decision to place the truth before my own welfare, career and possessions, I need the certitude of that true, great hope…we need witnesses—martyrs—who have given themselves totally, so as to show us the way—day after day.” (#39 Spe Salvi)
I shared this below quote with him and he immediately focussed on the “witnesses—martyrs—who have given themselves totally.” He shared the story of his father, his immigrant grandfathers and the witness they and other men shared with him to strengthen his journey as a father in love with his wife and children.
Our fathers on earth may never be perfect but we are thankful for the witness they share in love and offer our prayers of support for these men that they may grow ever stronger in the virtues of fatherhood.
Happy Father’s Day.

God Bless
Fr. Mark