A Father's Love by David Nacey
"Daddies don't just love their children every now and
then. It's a love without end, amen." - George Strait
When former President George H.W. Bush passed away late in 2018,
his son, former President George W. Bush, invited country singer George Strait
to sing his famous song, "A Father's Love" at the funeral. As a
man who dealt successfully with his past troubles concerning addiction,
President George W. Bush was intimately familiar with both kinds of the
fatherly love sung about by Mr. Strait, the constant, patient, and undying love
of both his father on Earth, and his Almighty Father in heaven. Moved by the
music and touched both by God's love and his own deceased father's, President
Bush was overcome with tears.
How is a father's love like that of God the Father? As
fathers, or perhaps even as "father figures", what are our
responsibilities toward the young lives God entrusts with our care? Given
such an awesome responsibility, what steps can we take to ensure that we are
living up to our duties as regards our children? Finally, to what reward
are we striving with all our work, patience, love, and sacrifice? We will
be exploring the answers to these questions in the following few
paragraphs. So, thank you again for your time and attention, and let's
begin to explore God's plan for fatherhood.
As Christians, we learn that there is one God, and that He
consists of three divine Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. Not to belabor a long theological discussion, the Father wills
all that is into existence. He does this by sending forth a Word.
God's Word becomes action; in Spanish, it is called "Verbo", or verb,
meaning action word. Being all powerful, God's Word issues forth from God
as a personal force of action. That action is creation. History
would come to know that Word as Jesus, when in the fullness of salvation
history, He took the form of the Son of God as an unborn child in the womb of
the Blessed Virgin Mary. Father wills, Son creates. What the Father
engenders by His Word becomes God Himself as the Son. The Father loves
His Word. The Son loves His Father and all their creation. The love
between Father and Son is so infinitely strong, that this love between them sends
forth another divine Person, Whom we come to know as the Holy Spirit.
Father wills, Son creates, Spirit loves. The Blessed Trinity. In
the Blessed Trinity, we have a human model for the Holy Family: Joseph the
Father, Mary the mother, and Jesus the child. We also have the archetype
for our own families, father, mother, and child.
I lack the competence to be able to tell you what is in the mind
of God; that is impossible to know. From the Bible, we can deduce that
God has infinite love for his creation. St. John 3:16 is enough evidence
to begin to show the manner in which God loves his creation, for by sacrificing
that which He loves the most for our sake, the length, width, and breadth of
His love shines through. If the Blessed Trinity is our family's model, then a
father must love his children through all their faults, as our Heavenly Father
does. A father must endure frustration, anxiety, and disappointment. Yes,
he must use the rod to correct, but never out of anger or revenge. Above
all, a father must smile through it all when his work, patience, love, and
sacrifice are repaid not by being showered with money, or favors, or even
praise, but by the satisfaction of seeing his children's development into men
and women of moral character and substance.
As fathers, we must model within our own families the
relationship our children will have with God as they develop into adults.
Just stop reading and let that sink in for a moment. Yes, you read that
correctly. Dads, don't get a big head about this fact, because it comes
with one humongous catch. Fathers and mothers cooperate in the creation
of souls through the physical fulfillment of their matrimonial union and being
open to life. The child depends on you to provide the safety of a home,
and for all his earthly needs. Until his little mind is able to accept
the religious concepts you must teach him, you the father are the biggest thing
he can conceive of in his entire worldview. So, teach him about God, for
if you don't, he will make an idol of you! If you don't read the Bible,
start doing so now, so that you can teach him the lessons therein, and guide
him to grow in his faith and character along with his body and mind.
Failure is not an option here. God has placed you at the head of your family.
It is He who blessed you with children. You, the father, are to act as
His surrogate, to whom He has entrusted your children's very souls. If
you should lead them to fall, if one of them should lose his way through your
negligence or vice, your infidelity or divorce, or your violence, the loss of
their souls will be on your account, and trust me, you will not stand against
that. God says in the Bible that it would be better for that man if he
had never been born. God will forgive truly repentant sinners, but can
you imagine the terrible, suffering penance in store for the man who causes one
of God's children to lose his soul? Just thinking about it makes me
tremble.
What happens to us when we, as St. Paul said, come to the end of
our race? When our ending comes, does it come easily, surrounded by our
loved ones, with the comfort of knowing we did all that was in our power to
make our families like unto the example of the Holy Family, in faith, hope, and
love? As our organs cease their functions, as consciousness loses its
grasp on our senses, and as our spirit begins to rise toward the ultimate
oneness of union with our Creator, will we hear the words ascribed to our
Heavenly Father, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy
of your Master's house"? We will be certain, then, that both a father's
love, and THE Father's love, is indeed a love without end. Amen.
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