Father… this word permeates our lives as Catholics. We call our priests “Father,” our prayers are directed to the Father, in fact, Jesus came to show us the Father for “he who has seen me has seen the Father.” Our Faith is filled with fatherhood and so for a man to become a father is an incredibly daunting task, and so today we celebrate all of those men who have risen to the occasion and have been reflections of our Heavenly Father.
So what does it really mean to be a father? What makes for a good father? In seminary, we were shown a study in which psychologists were able to identify four traits that are most important for a father to display to his children. While this is not an exhaustive list of traits that make for a good father, these are habits that all fathers can strive to practice.
1) A father plays with his children. The simple act of joining their children in their playtime teaches the little ones that they are worth spending time with. The father is willing to “waste time” with their children. The child learns that he is loved, and that he does not need to do anything special to earn this love from the father.
2) A father shows affection to his wife. When the children see physical signs of affection between their parents they are taught that they are living in a safe environment. If their parents love each other, then they too are loved, and they know that they will have a stable home base from which they can venture out to explore the world.
3) A father is able to admit when he is wrong. No father is perfect. Perfection is not a goal that is really possible to attain in this life, and so because of this, it is vitally important for a father to be able to name his own shortcomings and to apologize to his children for the ways he may have let them down. It is the process of rupture and repair of the relationship that builds it stronger than if the rupture had never taken place. Fathers apologize.
4) A father shows self-restraint and temperance. A father who is not a slave to his passions is one that will hand on that virtue to his children. Again, a house in which the father can show self-restraint is a house in which the children know that they are safe and loved. Their father is someone they can rely upon and can approach with their problems. It is actually from our fathers that we learn our sense of boundaries.
As you can see the primary role of the father is to love his children. This is the way he best resembles our Heavenly Father who “so loved that world that he gave his only son.” A Happy Father’s Day to all the dads.
In Christ,
Colm Larkin