No ‘Holier Name’: A Tribute to Fathers
“Father!—To God Himself we cannot give a holier name,” said poet William Wordsworth. Today is Fathers’ Day, a day to celebrate the men who raised, taught, guided, and sacrificed for us.
In Ex. 20:12, God gives the Fourth Commandment: “Honor thy father and thy mother, that thou mayest be longlived upon the land which the Lord thy God will give thee.” This is the very first of the commandments that deal with human relationships rather than specifically with our duties to God, and above all other duties besides adoration and worship God has placed honor to our parents. Fathers are given by God, Himself a Father, to guide and care for us during our most vulnerable and formative years. “One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters,” George Herbert observed.
My own father taught me not only to work hard and be patriotic, but he has always been ready over the years to help me do math homework, file taxes, solve car troubles, plan trips, and much more. From my grandfather, I learned to love writing, history, music, and old movies. And I have been blessed to have so many men as role models and guides in my life, uncles and great-uncles and priests and professors, men who, by word and example, taught me to be a godly person and a responsible citizen.
While it is certainly possible to be a good man without having had a good father, it is much more difficult; God, of course, knew best when He established the family. Whether we personally had fathers who were absent or admirable or abusive, we all understand how impactful and important fathers are. “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men,” said Frederick Douglass. He knew that all too well from experience, as his own father was a white man who did no more for Frederick than impregnate Frederick’s mother. On the flip side, however, Frederick married his children’s mother and raised them with his wife. Douglass broke the cycle, but he saw in his days of slavery how dangerous and damaging it could be to have no good father to guide young sons and daughters.
The modern world too often uses “patriarchy” and “fatherhood” as pejorative terms, but in the truest sense “father” is a holy word, as Wordsworth noted. It is a word that stands for love, sacrifice, and strength. To quote a George Strait song, “Daddies don’t just love their children every now and then, it’s a love without end, Amen.”
(The following paragraphs are taken from my piece for PJ Media.)
The modern world hates fatherhood. They try to denigrate and undermine everything that is associated with the virtues of fatherhood. Men are told not to be strong, not to be decisive, not to be self-sacrificial, not to be protectors and providers. Men are taught to be selfish, weak, and cowardly. Even the word patriarchy is used as if it were a vile word!
In the end, this is not only an attack on the lynchpin and guardian of society (the father), but it is an attack on God Himself. It is the puerile and irrational but dangerous rebellion of a spoiled child against his father. For several generations, young people have fancied themselves rebels against morality and tradition, against reason and purity, and so naturally, they hate fatherhood. But we see now how horribly destructive such a rebellion is. Increased drug abuse, teen pregnancy, broken families, loss of religion — these and many other evils can be traced back to America’s crisis of fatherhood.
A wise priest once told me, “The modern world does not hate God because He is God, they hate God because He is a Father.” How true that is! And how true it also is that society will never be healthy again, our country will never be great again, until we have a new generation of good fathers. When men and women can see each other as partners instead of rivals, when men marry before becoming fathers, when there is again a societal value both for children and for parenthood, we can look cheerfully to the future. Those are the essential goods we must work for.
To all fathers, physical, adoptive, or spiritual, have a wonderful day, and thank you for everything you do!