"you have but one Father in heaven”

God, in His Mercy, calls spouses (our father and mother) into His creative fatherhood. What an honor and privilege given within the Sacrament of Marriage. God could have chosen any way to bring forth life. He chose to bring forth life with the cooperation of and love of spouses within the Sacrament of Marriage. “Called to give life, spouses share in the creative power and fatherhood of God. ‘Married couples should regard it as their proper mission to transmit human life and to educate their children, they should realize that they are thereby cooperating with the love of God the Creator and are, in a certain sense, its interpreters. They will fulfill this duty with a sense, its interpreters. They will fulfill this duty with a sense of human and Christian responsibility.’” [1]
 
VARIOUS - Fatherlessness - POP CULTURE CONNECTION
VIDEO - Fatherlessness (3:31)
MUSIC - Song for Dad by Keith Urban (3:57)
VIDEO - No Daddy to Push Me (3:23)
 
There is no shortage of videos that express the need for fathers in our society. Please use these options and search out your own that convey the message of this lesson. We should never fell that we are “doomed” or “cursed” if we have grown up without a father or grown up with the bad example of a Father. In this Gospel, Jesus does not leave us in despair but rather ends with the word “exalted.” This is a word of hope.

What can we learn and reflect upon in regards to the fact of a fatherless generation? First, we can realize that fathers have been given a tremendous duty and because of that they need to be responsible. Instead of pointing the finger and blaming, we need to support and prayer for fathers. Males need to become good fathers if they are called to the vocation of marriage. They can do this by remembering the three P’s: Praying, Playing, and Providing. Fathers first and foremost must pray with their children and for their children. This will set the example for their young children that they are not the true head of the household but that God the Father is the one who ultimately runs the house. Males should play with their children by just being interactive with them. Yes, children can be into things that many parents have a hard time understanding, but the only way to begin to understand is by interacting. Lastly, fathers need to provide, not just financially for the family but also provide the strength and masculinity in the household. Fathers must provide true authentic love for their children. It also means to provide faith and life skills for their children, especially older boys who are going through puberty. Adolescent boys need their father the most during those years. Females need to raise good boys that will become good fathers. Females can provide the three P’s as well, but they must understand that when boys are reaching the age of puberty and adolescence, the boys need their fathers more. The mothers then must begin to love, respect and treat their sons as becoming men. We cannot continue to be victims. The Pharisees in the Gospel were not living up to their responsibilities and Jesus was correcting them. The Pharisees were the spiritual fathers and had abandoned their spiritual children.
 
Second, we must realize that as Catholics we have three fathers. First and foremost we have our heavenly Father. If someone is without an earthly father let’s not make matters worse and walk away from our heavenly Father. We must remember and pray often the Our Father, which reminds us that Our Father will never abandon us. If we are not close to Him, it is not He that has moved away, but we that have moved. We also see in the Our Father, the care that He takes when He “gives us our daily bread,” “forgives us our trespasses” and “delivers us from evil.” This is a loving Father that can never forget or not fulfill His responsibilities. We also have a spiritual Father, our parish priest and our Bishop. Our parish priest is a Father to us and we must see and respect Him as so.

In the movie “Rocky,” Rocky Balboa knows that Fr. Carmine will be there for him, in prayer as his spiritual father and asks him for a blessing. Yes, the facts of fatherlessness are startling, but we must also remember that most of America does not know that God is their Father and does not know that they have a spiritual Father at their local parish. Our bishop, priests and earthly fathers are only successful in their fatherhood to the extent that that imitate the Fatherhood of God.
 
We look with hope to the example of others and especially to the Saints. Both Saint Therese and Saint John Paul II loss their mothers at a very young age. They both, two of our greatest Saints, grew up in a single parent home. You might say that it was because they had great fathers, but we can also look at Saints like Saint Augustine whose father was horrible and even encouraged his son to live in sin. Saint Augustine did go down a bad path for many years and even had a child out of wedlock. Through the power of his mother’s prayers and the Grace of God, he changed. Change is always possible, and we must never forget that. We must have hope and remember, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13) Maybe the focus should not be on a “fatherless” generation, but rather a “fatherful” generation. We have an earthly father, a spiritual father and a heavenly father, let us take the good that all three have to give us.
 
How has our relationship with our “fathers,” God, bishops and priests and earthly dad, shaped our life? 

[1] Catechism of the Catholic Church; 2367