Category Archives: Father’s Role

Courageous Adventurers……Fathers of Families – Christ in the Home

15 Friday Jul 2016

Posted by in Father's Role, For the Guys - The Man for Her

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CHARLES PEGUY called fathers of families, “these great adventurers of the modern world.” How correct he was!

What courage is needed to step out before life, with a companion on one’s arm, aspiring to have children and hoping that Mother Earth will be able to support and nourish their own little world!

Certainly the joy that attends the birth of a babe is sweet.

Here is how a father describes it: When one sees a little one so weak yet so well formed one loves the Creator still more and how much more one thanks Him for giving us life!

What a beautiful mystery maternity is!

To see a young mother feeding her babe suffices to incite one to adore God.

There is nothing more touching than to see this dear little treasure resting in the arms of its mother. It was baptized on March 28.

What a majestic ceremony it was and how proud one feels to be able to say his son is a Christian!

But what anguish is suffered if the children are sick; if the mother’s strength fails beneath her work.

How anxious one grows when the little ones cough and gasp for breath.

And even if all goes well as far as health is concerned, there is no end to buying clothes, having shoes resoled, and providing food for the ever hungry mouths.

When the children grow up, one must be concerned about their education.

One must start thinking about school for the boys and the girls. Which school is best? Which teachers are best qualified?

Will they take the same interest in our children that we the parents do? Will they give them what they really need to face life?

Then come the sudden worries–auto accidents, accidents in sports, war in which the worst bodily dangers threaten!

But worse still and more serious by far are the soul dangers–the boy who keeps bad hours, who has an evil tongue and a shifty glance, who evades questions and begins to lie.

Yes, indeed, what magnificent and courageous adventurers are fathers of families!

A reporter recounted the enthusiastic acclaim the people of Paris gave the intrepid sailor Alain Gerbault who had succeeded in sailing around the world in a very frail skiff.

“For my part,” said the reporter, “I gave to Alain Gerbault the recognition that was his due.”

But in the crowd that had gathered about the famous sailor, the newspaper man found himself next to a family of rather humble means to judge by their appearance, although they did not lack dignity.

There were five children with the father and mother, all modestly and neatly dressed.

The father was explaining to his sons, “Oh, what an admirable type is this Gerbault! What a hero!“

“I shared that idea,” commented the reporter, “but I thought that father was also a hero to pilot a skiff loaded down with children on the parisian ocean as he was doing . . . . I even wondered if it were not more admirable than to guide a boat on the high sea with only oneself to think of.”

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“The Holy Family lived in a plain cottage among other working people, in a village perched on a hillside. Although they did not enjoy modern conveniences, the three persons who lived there made it the happiest home that ever was. You cannot imagine any of them at any time thinking first of himself. This is the kind of home a husband likes to return to and to remain in. Mary saw to it that such was their home. She took it as her career to be a successful homemaker and mother.”
-Fr. Lawrence G. Lovasik. The Catholic Family Handbook

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TRUE MEN AS WE NEED THEM – Rev. Fr. Bernard O’Reilly, 1894

A very valuable book for the guys plucked out of the past and reprinted. It was written in 1894 by Fr. Bernard O’Reilly and the words on the pages will stir the hearts of the men to rise to virtue and chivalry…. Beautifully and eloquently written! A great Father’s Day gift!

The Hunter and His Son – Plain Talks on Marriage

11 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by in Father's Role, For the Guys - The Man for Her, Parenting, Plain Talks on Marriage - Rev. Fulgence Meyer

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From Plain Talks on Marriage by Rev. Fulgence Meyer, O.F.M., 1927

A man who had long given up the practice of his holy faith had a son of about fourteen years of age who had just received his first solemn Communion with sincere piety.

The father was very fond of him.

Shortly after the boy’s first solemn Communion the father accosted him one Sunday morning, saying he should get ready, for they were to go out together to hunt all day.

The boy replied; “Papa, I must go to Mass first.”

At this the father seemed to be peeved, and he rejoined: “Oh, you need not go to Mass now anymore; you are getting old enough to have more liberty.”

Now the boy appeared hurt, and asked: “Papa, does not the Third Commandment say: “Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath Day?”

“Third Commandment, nothing,” answered the irate father; “that does not mean anything.” The boy gravely looked up at his father and said solemnly: “Papa, if the Third Commandment does not mean anything, then the Fourth Commandment which says: ‘Honor thy father and thy mother,’ does not count either. If I do not have to honor God, I need not honor you.”

At this utterance the father grew pensive. He feared if he would not relent, he would lose his hold on his son. He therefore said cautiously: “Well, maybe it is better that you go to Mass; and I will go with you.”

He continued to accompany his son to Mass ever after to his own and the family’s welfare and happiness. The reason many Catholic parents lose out with their children and have no sway over them is often because they themselves disobey God and ignore his authority.

“If God’s authority means so little to them,” the children argue, “why should my parents’ authority mean anything to me?”

A Catholic couple shows the fear of the Lord by receiving the sacraments worthily and often.

They would dread to take the chance of doing without the heavenly food of our Lord’s Body and Blood for too long. They go frequently, of possible; even every day. They not only approach the holy rail themselves, but they see to it, that all the members of the family communicate often. Their example alone will usually be a sufficient factor to bring this about.

floodgates

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“One of the first essential elements in a wife is faithfulness, in the largest sense. The heart of her husband safely trusts in her. Perfect confidence is the basis of all true affection. A shadow of doubt destroys the peace of married life. A true wife, by her character and by her conduct, proves herself worthy of her husband’s trust. He has confidence in her affection; he knows that her heart is unalterably true to him.” -.J.R.Miller
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Fathers, Reflect the Dignity of God’s Fatherhood

18 Saturday Jun 2016

Posted by in Family Life, Father's Role, For the Guys - The Man for Her

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From The Catholic Family Handbook by Fr. Lawrence G. Lovasik

Nature and Christian Tradition tell us that the father is the head of the home. That alone should suggest the dignity of fatherhood. Your dignity as a father rests, first of all, upon the fact that Almighty God has bestowed upon you the privilege of cooperating in the greatest natural mystery: the creation of human life.

Sons and daughters are yours in a sense that nothing else you may ever possess can be called your own. That thought carries with it a unique honor.

Even modern society, which has striven to forget the sanctity of marriage, retains this basic recognition. Your children are your dependents. They bear your name. They imitate many of your mannerisms, gestures, and modes of thought.

Much more: if you are a worthy father, and they are worthy children, they carry with them through life the training in virtue that you alone can impress on their young minds.

Pope Leo XIII reminds each father that he is “the head of the family” and stresses that “the right of property which has been proved to belong to individual persons must also belong to the man as the head of the family.”

This follows logically, because “it is a most sacred law of nature that a father must provide food and all necessities for those whom he has begotten, as well as what is necessary to keep them from want and misery in the uncertainties of this mortal life….

The father’s power is of such a nature that it cannot be destroyed or absorbed by the State, for it has the same origin as human life itself.”

St. Thomas Aquinas  wrote, “The father according to the flesh has in a particular way a share in that principle which is in a manner universal found in God…. The father is the principle of generation, of education and discipline.”

Exert your fatherly authority early on…..

You should exert your authority as a father even when your children are babies. Your word should be something strong, good, and a little to be feared.

If your children learn to respect your authority even from their tender years, they will find that authority a tremendous power to guide those difficult, almost uncontrollable years of adolescence.

But if you let your wife do all the bossing, and are content to be another child yourself, you will be able to make only a feeble protest to youth’s tendency to disobedience and independence.

It is never too soon for you to take up your position of authority as a father if you wish to have it established as a guide for your youngsters later on.

Reflect the dignity of God’s Fatherhood…

Your children should enjoy the strength of your kind paternal authority. It gives them security. What is more, they are given security by the knowledge that their mother and father are united in matters of discipline.

It is dangerous when a child can obtain from a softer parent something that he has failed to obtain from a stricter one, or when parents quarrel in front of children over points of conduct.

In the full program of domestic education, you must take great care that you use your authority properly.  Pope Pius XI said that normally a vocation to the priesthood is the result of the example and teaching of a father “strong in faith and manly in virtues.”

Therefore, fatherhood is a vocation in God’s service, to be held not lightly or frivolously, but with the serious determination of serious men.

Since it is a life’s work in His service, God offers His aid at every important step along the difficult road.

On your part, though, He expects cooperation with grace, which in turn calls for persevering good will, a spirit of sacrifice, and conscientious observance of God’s law made known by the Church.

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quote for the day2

“If you mostly ignore your children, turn them over to computer games, audio and visual media, telephone pals, and social events, they may continue to live in the same house, but you won’t find them on the same page. When a parent allows their child’s course to be set by the wind of chance, or the vapor of mere academics, they’re either praying for an unlikely miracle or are guilty of neglect. I think we can all agree that raising children is the greatest challenge and, potentially, the greatest blessing on earth. If children are in your care, your heart must always be on them, for their souls are in your hands.”
– No Greater Joy
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