As we celebrate his feast next month, and Father’s Day this month, I want us to contemplate some of his timeless wisdom on the vocation of fatherhood. 

We need to begin with what the Church teaches us about this beautiful calling. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “The divine fatherhood is the source of human fatherhood” (2214). In those moments of joy, when a father helps his child take his or her first steps, runs after children in the yard and accompanies a daughter down the aisle at a wedding — or religious consecration! — a father is treading the steps that have already been taken by our loving Creator. 

A father is, in many ways, one of the first reminders of the God who cares deeply for us as his children. He advocates for us and offers up his daily comfort for our fulfillment. He walks this challenging road not only to endure suffering, but to overcome it, to be purified by it like God’s own son. 

St. Benedict was writing about the spiritual headship that abbots pledge themselves to each day. Even though they have many children, St. Benedict instructed them to adapt to each monk under his care, “to one gentleness of speech, to another by reproofs, and to still another by entreaties, to each one according to his bent and understanding” (II).

This is the reality of fatherhood. We all have our own tendencies to excel or fall short in certain ways. But that doesn’t change the relationship that we have to our fathers, especially not God. He loves us, despite our flaws, by the fact that he has chosen to be spiritually responsible for us, and that he brought us into existence. 

St. Benedict described rightly ordered, God-centered headship as the balance between “the severity of the master and the loving affection of a father” (II). Like a shepherd, he calls his father to bring home his sheep “on his sacred shoulders” (XXVII). How blessed are we to be honored to participate in God’s calling to bear truth and the banner of Christ the King boldly into the lives of his most beloved children! 

I pray that all fathers this month, including our spiritual fathers who share the same responsibility, might be strengthened in their vocation to love their families more deeply and profoundly, so that they might honor their Father in heaven by the witness they give to those who look to them for understanding.

In Christ’s love,

Most Rev. Jacques Fabre-Jeune, CS

Bishop of Charleston