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Jesus left
very little wiggle room for his disciples when he said to them: “Fear no
one.” He didn’t
say, “Fear your enemies.” He also didn’t say, “Fear your friends.”
“Fear no one” is what he said, no if’s, and’s, or but’s about it.
Of course,
what Jesus was talking about is how easy it is for any of us to allow
the fear of others to keep us from professing our faith in public and
from leading prayers before meals or at the beginning of meetings. In
addition, Jesus was also talking about easy it is for any of us to allow
our fear of others to keep us from correcting them about their use of
foul language and the foul jokes they tell as well as from telling them
how their behavior is compromising their values or, more important yet, their vows. Jesus
was also talking about how we allow our fear of others to paralyze us
from taking the car keys away from others after they’ve been drinking
too much or from admonishing them in an appropriate way about how they’ve made fools of
themselves.
Jesus is
absolutely correct when he tells his disciples to fear no one,
especially when it comes to calling others to accountability about the
bad or immoral choices they are making.
But, why is
Jesus absolutely correct?
Because
if Jesus’ disciples allow themselves to be paralyzed by fear, they will never proclaim the
good news of salvation. Then, slowly but surely, the virtue,
character, and holiness characterizing those who seek to build a culture of life will
ebb and wane as they (and the entire culture) gradually embrace the
culture of death. Before long, they will celebrate how easy and fun it is to break the
taboos that were sinful only one generation earlier.
The
spiritual problem Jesus is pointing out to his disciples, then, isn’t so
much fear—after all, fear can inspire courage—but how easy it is to
allow fear to debilitate and paralyze us from being courageous, from acting in the way we
know how we ought to act, and from being the type of person we know we
ought to be. Yes, Jesus is correct. Fear can debilitate and
paralyze us as moral agents so that people don’t hear what they need to
hear if they are to turn their backs on the culture of death and to
embrace the culture of life.
On this
Father’s Day, I want to consider a fear of others that is especially
debilitating to children, especially teenagers. What is this fear?
Well, it’s a fear plaguing many fathers
have today, a fear that makes fathers more than anxious. It’s
a fear that strikes right
to the
depths of their souls, a fear that actually debilitates and paralyzes many fathers.
This fear is so very simple to see, if you know what it is.
The fear
that strikes deep into the souls of
many fathers today is the fear of standing up to their children—especially
their teenagers—and making
them change their attitudes and behaviors so that they reflect those of
spiritually mature human beings.
Consider
some of these statistics, first, to get a glimpse into how important a
father really is to his children and, second, to see what it is that
fathers must do for the sake of their children if they are to grow
towards spiritual maturity.
Today, 50%
of children—and only 20% of inner-city children—live in
homes with their biological fathers. The tragic reality reported by
The National Fatherhood Initiative is that some 35 million children
today live absent or apart from the biological fathers.
The
disastrous social consequences of this abdication of paternal
responsibility for one’s
children are
very well-documented. And, although some single parents do bring up relatively
well-adjusted children with the assistance of extended families,
churches, and schools, there is an irrefutable correlation linking
juvenile social deviancy to fatherless homes. The simple truth is that most
teenage social problems—e.g., crime, drug abuse, unwed pregnancy and
abortion, youth suicide, school dropouts—are the direct consequence of
fathers abdicating their paternal responsibility.
According to
statistics available from the Center for Disease Control, the Department of Justice, the
Department of Health and Human Services, and the Bureau of the Census,
63% of teen suicides, 70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions,
71% of high-school dropouts, 75% of children in chemical-abuse centers,
80% of rapists, 85% of youths in prison, 85% of children who exhibit
behavioral disorders including hyperactivity, and 90% of homeless and
runaway children are children from—don’t
be surprised now—fatherless homes!
Barbara
Dafoe Whitehead, a Rutgers sociologist, states: “[The causal link
between fatherless children and crime] is so strong that controlling for
family configuration erases the relationship between race and crime and
between low income and crime.” What’s this research really mean?
Simply put: it is a myth that criminals can be profiled by race and low
income. If you want to profile criminals, it would be more accurate
just to ask whether or not there is a resident father. Using history as
a guide, did you know that Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and
Saddam Hussein all grew up in fatherless homes?
The
President of the Institute for American Values, David Blankenhorn, puts
it this way:
Children who
grow up with their fathers do far better—emotionally, educationally,
physically, every way we can measure—than children who do not. This
conclusion holds true even when differences of race, class, and income
are taken into account. The simple truth is that fathers are
irreplaceable in shaping the competence and character of their
children….[The absence of fathers] from the family is surely the most
socially consequential family trend of our era.
The
phenomenon of “absentee
fathers” may well be the most socially consequential family trend of our
era because, after all, nothing appears to so endanger a child’s
reliably receiving authentic paternal love than the divorce and breakup
of a family. Twenty years following a divorce, only 25% percent of
girls and 32% of boys report being “close” to their fathers. Fifty
percent of children living without their fathers have never been inside
of their fathers’ homes. In one study, only 27% of children older than
four years of age saw their absentee father at least once a week in the
past three years and 31% have had no contact whatsoever with their
absentee father. Furthermore, data gathered from children of cohabiting
parents reveal that these children are closer in their indicators of
well-being to the children of single parents than they are to children
of two-parent families. Why? The father is resident, isn’t he? Yes,
he is. But, the fact is that 75% of cohabitating parents split
up before their children are sixteen years old.
Contrast
those very sad and troubling statistics with these more uplifting
statistics (although I wish the percentage was higher): 70% of children of
intact families say they have “close” relationships to their fathers.
Let there be
no doubt about it: fatherhood
is an irreplaceable institution. In fact, God has designed fatherhood so
that every one of His children receive the authentic paternal love,
discipline, support, and
protection which only a father can give to his
children so that they will grow to spiritual maturity.
Believe it or
not, a responsible, loving, and married man who is boring and a constant
provocation to his eye-rolling teenagers is God’s instrument of
salvation. This is the man God has called to save every one of His children from
the devastating effects of divorce (the divorce rate in the US has more than doubled
between 1965 and 1980) and out-of-wedlock births (which rose 600%
in the US between 1960 and 2000).
What is it
that a resident father does—because he loves God and fears no one—that
makes him boring and a constant provocation yet successful in raising
his children to be spiritually mature adults?
I have
already hinted at the first thing.
A resident
father loves God above all things. As a consequence, the resident
father’s lifestyle
teaches his children through his example about what it means to be a God-centered
human being. The concept
of God and the invocation of God’s name (unless it is uttered in vain) is
foreign to any child who does not hear it at home. So, the challenge to
resident fathers is to be a man of faith and, through your example of
life, to
provide your children with many vivid memories of what it means to have
and to live out one’s faith.
A second
thing that resident fathers do that makes him boring and a constant
provocation yet successful in raising his children to be spiritually
mature adults follows from the first.
Resident fathers eliminate anything
that is ungodly, profane, and irreverent
from the home. This includes television programming and music that
transmit ungodly, profane, or irreverent images and messages. But, more
importantly, it means that they eliminate all ungodly, profane, and irreverent
language, magazines, and books from their lives!
What’s this
mean practically speaking?
A resident
father’s children should never hear him utter a curse word or use God’s
name in vain. They should never see nor know of their father reading
pornographic literature or viewing pornography whether on television, on
videotapes, or surfing the Internet. Why? When fathers engage in these
and other immoral activities, the effect on their sons is to teach them that
foul language is acceptable and that women are nothing more than objects
for to be used to satisfy their own selfish desires with no
responsibility attached. The effect on
daughters is to teach them that their true worth is found in being an
object of another man’s selfish desire with no responsibility attached.
So, what’s so
difficult about including spiritual music as background music at home?
What’s so challenging about leading the family in prayer at mealtimes?
What’s so awful about studying the Bible, the Catechism of the
Catholic Church, and other study guides available through religious
publishers and, then, discussing what you believe, why you believe it,
and how it applies to your daily life with your wife and children?
Nothing...unless you do not love God above all else!
The third
thing that makes a resident father boring and a constant provocation yet
successful in raising his children to be spiritually mature adults is
that these fathers are dogged in promoting a tangible spirituality in the family’s life.
How does this play
out?
If
necessary, these fathers will drag their children out of bed and into church on
Sunday so that they will see what it means to worship
something larger than themselves. How will they see this?
The children of these fathers will watch their
father on his knees as he worships something greater than himself,
namely, God. This sends a very powerful, nonverbal, symbolic
message to children...especially teenagers.
These fathers not only attend church but are also
involved in parish life, perhaps assisting at Mass as a lector,
extraordinary minister of the Eucharist, or usher, or by
providing important and necessary services like gardening, painting,
serving on the pastoral council, or cleaning the church. Through this
dedicated service which makes no sense in a consumer society because
“there’s
nothing in it for me,” these fathers teach their children
by their living example that faith devoid
of actions—as the St. James the Apostle teaches—is really not faith at
all.
In our
society, being a father in this way—the way God has designed fatherhood—is
countercultural while being an “absentee father” is considered “trés
chique” and “avant garde.” Just last week, for example,
a wife who is contemplating what she called
“an amicable
divorce”
said that her children would “in
absolutely no way” would be hindered by the absence of their father.
“There’s a lot of ways we can provide quality parenting independent of
each other,” she insisted.
Sure.
The data
indicate that an absentee father is nothing but a recipe for
disaster, not only for his children but also for families and the nation
as well.
Dr. Edwin Cole calls this lack of effective, functioning fathers the
root cause of the nation’s social, economic, and spiritual crises. Dr.
Cole notes: “Maturity does not come with age, but with the accepting of
responsibility for one’s actions.” Resident fathers teach their
children this lesson day in and day out.
“Fear no
one,” Jesus said to his disciples.
For resident
fathers, this means not living in fear of your children, of what they
may say or think about you, or about how they will evaluate you.
Because resident fathers love God above all else, they are too busy
securing the foundation upon which they will build the virtuous and
spiritual character they desire for each of their children within the
well-sheltered environment of the home than they are worrying about what their
children think about their father. In fact, as resident fathers
eliminate anything ungodly, profane, and irreverent from the home and as
they promote a tangible spirituality in their family’s life, these
fathers know
that their children are always watching, taking in the data, and
evaluating it.
Sure,
especially during the teenage years, the children of resident fathers may complain about how
boring and strict their father is. They will also likely gripe
about how he constantly provokes them to be more spiritually mature. All the while,
a resident
father chuckles to himself, knowing that he is doing God’s
will.
This father understand
well what Jesus meant when he told his disciples:
“Do not be
anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the
day's own trouble be sufficient for the day.”
So, beyond
all of the loud and teary-eyed but self-absorbed rhetoric characterizing the teenage years of children
who live in a very materialistic culture that is tempting them to opt
for the culture of death, teenage children really do know and love their
resident father for being the kind of father God has designed and called
this man to be. And, best of all, it can be infallibly predicated that
one day his children will see this man as the father of their dreams.
In the mean
time, the reward for fulfilling one’s vocation to be a father—as God
intends—isn’t
like that of a mother.
Margaret
Mead, the anthropologist, once wrote: “Motherhood is natural; fatherhood
is learned” and the great philosopher Johnny Hart noted in his comic
strip “BC”:
Dear Dad:
I always have trouble
on Father's Day, writing my father a card. It seems to me that on
Mother's Day, it never is so really hard. Mommies make cookies—and
sew your clothes, and tuck you into your bed which sure beats
nuzzling-noggie from Dad or a cuff in the back of the head.
No, the reward is
simply the privilege of being a resident husband and father who
receives the smiles and hugs that emerge every once and a while in the
resident father’s close relationship to his wife and children. Sure,
he’s not cool. I won’t
argue,
he’s strict. No doubt about it, you will not be able to change his
mind 100% of the time. But, don’t ever forget that this man is absolutely crucial in
God’s plan to bring every one of His children to spiritual maturity.
No doubt
about it. Every child deserves this man! And every mother wants one
for her children!
A brief commercial
break:
Perhaps
fatherhood is, in any generation, a very challenging vocation. But,
perhaps none more so than this generation. To address this vocation
in these challenging times, Pope John Paul II wrote Guardian of the
Redeemer: On the Person and Mission of St. Joseph in the Life of Christ
and the Church (Redemptoris Custos). In this apostolic
exhortation written in 1989, the Pope notes that St. Joseph was a quiet
man who has very much to say about being a spouse, fatherhood, and being
an evangelist:
Fatherhood presents such challenges to
American culture in particular that being a real father is actually a
countercultural and subversive activity. The National Fatherhood
Initiative is a federally-sponsored project that is intended to assist
biological fathers to become real fathers to their children so that
every child has the father God intended for each of His children:
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HOMILY
