Letter from the Pastor
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June 18, 2023Happy Father’s Day! What an awesome calling in life: to be a Dad. Fatherhood of course is so much more than biology. Fatherhood is a vocation. You along with your wife are given a treasure, a sacred trust in the gift of your children. Today we celebrate our Dads; we pray for them, living or deceased.
The history of Father’s Day is connected with the much older Mother’s Day, first celebrated in the 1860’s. The campaign to celebrate fathers did not meet with the same excitement. It took much longer.
On July 5, 1908, a West Virginia church sponsored the nation’s first Father’s Day. It was a service in memory of 362 men who had died in a coal mine explosion that previous December. It was a one-time event and not an annual holiday.
The next year, in Spokane, Washington, Sonora Smart Dodd, tried to establish an official Father’s Day. It was in tribute to her dad, a widower, who raised 6 children. Washington State celebrated the nation’s first Father’s Day on June 19, 1910.
Slowly, the holiday spread and it was not until 1972 that the day honoring fathers became a nationwide holiday in the United States. In other countries–especially in Europe and Latin America on St. Joseph’s Day, March 19, fathers are honored.
Like the many and important differences between a mother and father, the way we celebrate their special day is greatly different. Mother’s Day is more sentimental; flowers, candy, the family gathering with a meal, usually at a restaurant to give the “cook” the day off.
Father’s Day on the other hand, usually means “leave Dad alone” so he can go out and enjoy himself doing what he likes to do, e.g. golf, fishing, watching sports, or taking a longer nap.
Motherhood shares the feminine qualities, whereas fatherhood has the masculine qualities of educating, protecting, and providing for the family. A healthy family life needs both. In our own time far too many fathers are refusing fatherhood: Census Bureau statistics indicate that one-fourth of children are growing up without a father in the home, and in the inner city this number leaps to over 70 percent.
Fathers have an indispensible role in the mental and social development of children. Study after study shows many of our social ills; particularly violence is the result of absentee fathers. Fathers give life, but more importantly than just siring a child, a father gives protection, identity, wisdom, and example of faith.
You along with your wife are your children’s primary educators in the Faith. Not the CCD teacher, not Fr. Clarke or me, the school, not even the mother. The father is. Studies show that when a father does not practice his faith in front of his children, there is only a very small chance (2%) that the children will themselves be religious as adults. Your role as a father matters in the salvation of your child!
Your child, especially as a teenager, looks up to you and mimics you. You, as a father, need to pray with your kids, especially at Mass. Let them see you pray in the house before meals, at their bedtime and at Church. Pray with them, children love to memorize their prayers. Go over their day with them, a mini examination of conscience and then pray the Act of Contrition together. Teach them to take responsibility for their actions, and to say “I’m sorry.”
Of course, telling the child you love them is vital, especially boys. Love and tenderness are not reserved for Mom. You can be both tough and tender. And most essential: they know that you love their mother. You and your wife have to be on the same page. Our children need to see and learn about the special love of husband and wife. No one teaches us how to be a husband or wife, mother or father. We learn those roles from our own parents.
So gentlemen, enjoy your day, God’s blessings to you and your family, as we look to God, who is the model of all fatherhood to help us to be good and faithful fathers. Thank you for being a Dad. Be the best role model.
Congratulations and Thank You
This past Tuesday evening, June 13th, the Town of Orangetown, Department of Highways awarded our Parish with the Highway Department Beautification Award, presented by James Dean, Superintendent of Highways. Mr. Dean drives throughout the town and notices properties that are beautifully maintained and enhanced.
I would like to thank Rob DiBella, our landscaper and parishioner and his men for all their hard work in making our properties so beautiful with flowers and plantings. I also would like to thank you for your generosity, which makes it possible to maintain our property. This award belongs to DiBella Landscaping and to you. Congratulations!
