Yesterday a man I’ve known for ten years became a father. David Mees, who started coming to our parish men’s group in 2014, was ordained a Catholic priest in our cathedral yesterday. His supernatural fatherhood began the moment the Archbishop laid hands on his head and anointed his palms with oil. The tombstones of priests have three dates, not just two: date of birth, date of ordination, date of death. Maybe every father’s headstone should also include the date they became fathers.
Happy Father’s Day 2024. Fatherhood is kind of the forgotten vocation, almost an add-on to Mother’s Day. We first thought of honoring our mothers in the month of May, but we didn’t want our fathers to feel left out, so we gave them a day in June. True enough, a soldier dying on the field of battle calls out for his Mama, not his Papa, and yet … most social problems today can be traced back to Daddy wounds. If a boy shoots up with heroin or a young man shoots up a classroom, or if a girl cuts herself because of social media image issues or a young woman sleeps around, it’s probably because their fathers didn’t love them adequately. All of us suffer from Daddy issues to some degree, but third and fourth wave toxic feminism has had fatherhood in its sights for 60 years now. In fact, if you have any doubts about a certain parade in this city this month, know for certain that it loudly and pridefully shouts down fatherhood. The solution to daddy issues, however, is not to cancel men, but to strengthen fatherhood. Only a father can give the stability, normalcy, and constant love of which so many children are deprived today.
So we need Mother’s Day, but we also need Father’s Day. This year Father’s Day is nine days after the feast of the Sacred Heart, which is nine days after Corpus Christi, which falls within the Octave of Trinity Sunday, eight days after Pentecost. From novena to octave, the Catholic year leapfrogs from one mystery to another, all the way to the Father’s House at the end of time.
Let’s take a look at today’s scriptures, for the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time, or the 4th Sunday after Pentecost, and this year, Father’s Day. In Mark 4, Jesus describes the Kingdom of God as a man planting a crop. The seeds grow of their own accord, but these little plants need a man’s careful husbandry. They need someone to hoe away the weeds, to turn the soil and to water them and to care for them. And finally, Jesus says, the man wields the sickle for the harvest. The man must bring in the crop, put bread on the table. A man, more than a woman, is built for work, and work with his hands. That’s what the Kingdom of God looks like. Jesus adds a second image: a tiny mustard seed grown into the largest of bushes, in whose branches the birds of the air find rest and shade and secure dwelling.
In our current social economy, men don’t work much, certainly not with our hands. We play video games with our thumbs. But we should work, because that is what we are built for. A man should try to change the oil in his own car rather than paying someone else to do it. He should be able to fix a flat tire rather than calling a tow truck. He should cut his own lawn rather than paying poor immigrants to do it for him. He should weed his own garden, and wash his own clothes.
In Ezekiel 17, God the Father assures the children of Israel that he will plant a tree on a high mountain, he himself, and it will become a mighty cedar. Every man should plant a tree before he dies, and he should care for it as it grows into a mighty cedar. Finally, in 2 Corinthians 5 the Apostle says that “we must all appear before Christ one day, to be judged according to what we did in the body, whether good or evil. A man’s body is given him to build and to plant, to work hard, to protect and to provide, to glorify God. We men, perhaps more than women, will be judged on what we did with our bodies, with our considerable masculine powers, given us by God for sacred purposes.
David Mees was ordained yesterday—his head and hands were consecrated for sacrifice. A man is ordained for “sacrifice,” sacra facere in Latin, meaning “to make sacred.” All men are so ordained by God, so consecrate your hands and your feet for God’s purposes; ordain your minds to the things of God.
St. Joseph, just and strong, pray for us.
Happy Father’s Day 2024. Fatherhood is kind of the forgotten vocation, almost an add-on to Mother’s Day. We first thought of honoring our mothers in the month of May, but we didn’t want our fathers to feel left out, so we gave them a day in June. True enough, a soldier dying on the field of battle calls out for his Mama, not his Papa, and yet … most social problems today can be traced back to Daddy wounds. If a boy shoots up with heroin or a young man shoots up a classroom, or if a girl cuts herself because of social media image issues or a young woman sleeps around, it’s probably because their fathers didn’t love them adequately. All of us suffer from Daddy issues to some degree, but third and fourth wave toxic feminism has had fatherhood in its sights for 60 years now. In fact, if you have any doubts about a certain parade in this city this month, know for certain that it loudly and pridefully shouts down fatherhood. The solution to daddy issues, however, is not to cancel men, but to strengthen fatherhood. Only a father can give the stability, normalcy, and constant love of which so many children are deprived today.
So we need Mother’s Day, but we also need Father’s Day. This year Father’s Day is nine days after the feast of the Sacred Heart, which is nine days after Corpus Christi, which falls within the Octave of Trinity Sunday, eight days after Pentecost. From novena to octave, the Catholic year leapfrogs from one mystery to another, all the way to the Father’s House at the end of time.
Let’s take a look at today’s scriptures, for the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time, or the 4th Sunday after Pentecost, and this year, Father’s Day. In Mark 4, Jesus describes the Kingdom of God as a man planting a crop. The seeds grow of their own accord, but these little plants need a man’s careful husbandry. They need someone to hoe away the weeds, to turn the soil and to water them and to care for them. And finally, Jesus says, the man wields the sickle for the harvest. The man must bring in the crop, put bread on the table. A man, more than a woman, is built for work, and work with his hands. That’s what the Kingdom of God looks like. Jesus adds a second image: a tiny mustard seed grown into the largest of bushes, in whose branches the birds of the air find rest and shade and secure dwelling.
In our current social economy, men don’t work much, certainly not with our hands. We play video games with our thumbs. But we should work, because that is what we are built for. A man should try to change the oil in his own car rather than paying someone else to do it. He should be able to fix a flat tire rather than calling a tow truck. He should cut his own lawn rather than paying poor immigrants to do it for him. He should weed his own garden, and wash his own clothes.
In Ezekiel 17, God the Father assures the children of Israel that he will plant a tree on a high mountain, he himself, and it will become a mighty cedar. Every man should plant a tree before he dies, and he should care for it as it grows into a mighty cedar. Finally, in 2 Corinthians 5 the Apostle says that “we must all appear before Christ one day, to be judged according to what we did in the body, whether good or evil. A man’s body is given him to build and to plant, to work hard, to protect and to provide, to glorify God. We men, perhaps more than women, will be judged on what we did with our bodies, with our considerable masculine powers, given us by God for sacred purposes.
David Mees was ordained yesterday—his head and hands were consecrated for sacrifice. A man is ordained for “sacrifice,” sacra facere in Latin, meaning “to make sacred.” All men are so ordained by God, so consecrate your hands and your feet for God’s purposes; ordain your minds to the things of God.
St. Joseph, just and strong, pray for us.
Imposing hands on David Mees at his ordination. Photo: Eva Muntean.
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