Today is Fathers’ Day, that “second-class feast” in June established as an afterthought to compliment the First-Class Feast of Mother’s Day in May. But no foul, because fatherhood is a hidden virtue, a behind-the-scenes role, a subsidiary role in the Holy Family. St. Joseph, the best of earthly fathers, was a “quiet man” who avoided drama and quietly provided for Jesus and Mary. To get the job done means quiet focus rather than grandstanding.
But we live in a performative age, where children learn how to show off from the day their parents put a screen into their chubby little fingers. Life’s ambition is getting more clicks and likes than your classmates, and social media “influencers” are considered far more important than quiet men. Pride, rather than humility, is the sought after “virtue” in a performative age.
My city will become very noisy indeed the Sunday after Father’s Day in what the city fathers are pleased to call a “Pride Parade.” People will shout the regnant “virtue” of “pride” by flags flying, impassioned cries, queer dress, banging and honking, fist pumping and stomping, all to call attention to themselves.
Yesterday morning I happened to read Deuteronomy 22, in which the Children of Israel are prohibited from “crossdressing” under pain of stoning. Why is a man dressing like a woman a capital derelict in the Abrahamic Covenant? Because, as the footnote says, it rebels against the laws of nature and the Lord who made sexual differences. Cross dressing is a proud declaration that “I make my own day,” as the Instagram billboards proclaim, a middle finger to God the Father.
Many people suffer loneliness, lack of purpose, and life-confusion in the disastrous wake of the “sexual revolution.” Most of us have not grown up in stable families, with a father who loves his wife; the further down the salary scale you go the more likely you are to have been abandoned by your father. Most people under age 40 have been assaulted by obscenity, even sadomasochistic pornography, from well before puberty. Most young adults, as I hear day after day in confession and counseling, have not been protected from these things by their fathers.
And yet, we can begin again. Every day is a new day for us men to be good fathers. We have made mistakes, ourselves hurt by our own fathers’ mistakes, who were hurt by their fathers’ limitations. But every one of us can say, “it stops here.” Fatherhood is the neglected and misunderstood virtue, but notice, all you who believe in the Bible, that Christ describes God as a father, not a mother. Yes, of course, God is both mother and father to us, but motherhood is so naturally compelling a virtue that no one can disregard it. Fatherhood, on the other hand, needs focus and application.
There is a God, and we call Him “father.” Men, especially, have to apply themselves to believe in Him. We have to work at imitating His virtues, so manifest in the life of Jesus Christ. Happy Fathers’ Day to all my brothers in the one true Father of us all!
But we live in a performative age, where children learn how to show off from the day their parents put a screen into their chubby little fingers. Life’s ambition is getting more clicks and likes than your classmates, and social media “influencers” are considered far more important than quiet men. Pride, rather than humility, is the sought after “virtue” in a performative age.
My city will become very noisy indeed the Sunday after Father’s Day in what the city fathers are pleased to call a “Pride Parade.” People will shout the regnant “virtue” of “pride” by flags flying, impassioned cries, queer dress, banging and honking, fist pumping and stomping, all to call attention to themselves.
Yesterday morning I happened to read Deuteronomy 22, in which the Children of Israel are prohibited from “crossdressing” under pain of stoning. Why is a man dressing like a woman a capital derelict in the Abrahamic Covenant? Because, as the footnote says, it rebels against the laws of nature and the Lord who made sexual differences. Cross dressing is a proud declaration that “I make my own day,” as the Instagram billboards proclaim, a middle finger to God the Father.
Many people suffer loneliness, lack of purpose, and life-confusion in the disastrous wake of the “sexual revolution.” Most of us have not grown up in stable families, with a father who loves his wife; the further down the salary scale you go the more likely you are to have been abandoned by your father. Most people under age 40 have been assaulted by obscenity, even sadomasochistic pornography, from well before puberty. Most young adults, as I hear day after day in confession and counseling, have not been protected from these things by their fathers.
And yet, we can begin again. Every day is a new day for us men to be good fathers. We have made mistakes, ourselves hurt by our own fathers’ mistakes, who were hurt by their fathers’ limitations. But every one of us can say, “it stops here.” Fatherhood is the neglected and misunderstood virtue, but notice, all you who believe in the Bible, that Christ describes God as a father, not a mother. Yes, of course, God is both mother and father to us, but motherhood is so naturally compelling a virtue that no one can disregard it. Fatherhood, on the other hand, needs focus and application.
There is a God, and we call Him “father.” Men, especially, have to apply themselves to believe in Him. We have to work at imitating His virtues, so manifest in the life of Jesus Christ. Happy Fathers’ Day to all my brothers in the one true Father of us all!
A Peruvian painting of St. Joseph and his Son that hangs in my sitting room.
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