Father’s Day Homily
June 19, 2022
St. Steven the Martyr Church
Deacon Rick Kaszycki
This morning I would like to bring your attention to something in our society that has become endangered.
Endanger is a word used most often to describe the threatened disappearance of something in nature, like a rare tropical flower in the jungles of Madagascar, or an animal found only in the forests of Brazil. And unless some interaction is enacted to improve the existence of whatever is endangered the next thing that happens is extinction.
However, I am not referring to a plant or an animal but to Fathers. Our society is striving to make fatherhood unnecessary and fathers irrelevant. The purpose is to destroy the family thus creating a total dependance on government.
The sitcoms of broadcast media poke fun at fathers portraying them to be of inferior intelligence. Commercials tell us that you don’t need family in order to receive the friends and family discounts. Nevertheless, a good father is one of the most unsung, unpraised, unnoticed and yet one of the most valuable assets in our society.
Some of the weapons society uses to eliminate fathers and mothers and family are Progressivism, Cancel Culture, Critical Race Theory, acceptance of the LGBTQ agenda, transgenderism, anti-Christianity and Marxism.
The time is now for fathers to stand tall, be united, be heard and refuse to accept all attempts that would eliminate fathers and family. Fathers come in all shapes and sizes. They come with black hair and blond hair, with straight hair and curly hair. Some even come with no hair at all. They also come in a variety of skin colors too. Black, brown, white, red, yellow.
Fathers enter fatherhood in a variety of ways. Some enter it naturally by first taking a wife. Some by way of adoption. One by the most mysterious and glorious of ways (that would be St. Joseph). You see Fatherhood considers not size or shape, not race or color. Fatherhood only considers the heart. We fathers owe everything to God our Father, the uncreated creator of the universe, the creator of everything visible and invisible. We fathers can do nothing without God. And it is God our Father who has given us fathers absolutely everything we need to raise our children well.
He gave us our hands to help and to comfort. He gave us our mouths to speak words of encouragement and provide instructions and blessings and to sing lullabies. He gave us our eyes to see and follow our children as they grow and develop. He gave us our ears to listen to our children’s questions, concerns, hopes, dreams and desires. We fathers are called to be good stewards of these gifts from God.
For the same hands that guide and comfort can also strike in anger. The same mouth that speaks words of encouragement and sings gentle lullabies can also curse and criticize. The same eyes which see the good in a child can also be closed to everything but the bad. The same ears that listen to a child speaking can also turn deaf to the child preferring instead to listen to some electronically broadcast babble. God has given fathers all the tools needed, but we must still control ourselves and learn to use those tools properly and lovingly.
My fellow fathers, like it or not, our actions speak volumes about us to our children. They see everything we do and are aware of everything we do not do. Our sons need us as mentors, role models and heroes. Our daughters need our approval, our protection and our constant positive encouragement.
Fathers play an irreplaceable role in the lives of our children, and without our fatherly influence, their lives are negatively affected. Just take a look at society around us where there are so many fatherless homes, and you see the problems. So, we as fathers are called to these higher standards:
The best way to love our children is to love, honor and respect their mother. The best gift we can give them is safety and security as they are growing up. It is more important to give them our attention and time than it is to give them our money. It is more important to earn their respect than it is to seek their friendship. And it is far more important to encourage them in their interests, rather than it is to insist that they share in ours. And above all, we fathers are called to teach, model and live our Catholic faith fervently as the spiritual leaders of our homes.
We fathers are going to have good days and some not so good days. None of us is perfect as our heavenly father is perfect. Nevertheless, we are to persevere, growing in grace and love, and knowing that God our Father, who is perfect, will keep us under his protection as we strive to be good fathers.
Every morning, God knocks on our door telling us it is time to get up and He gives us the grace to be good, faithful fathers this day and every day.
St. Joseph, pray for us.
