FROM THE PASTOR’S DESK
Dear St. Mary’s Parishioners:
This Sunday, June 20th, is Father’s Day when we honor our fathers living and deceased. The blessing for fathers in the “Book of Blessings” on Father’s Day goes like this:
God our Father, in your wisdom and love you made all things. Bless these men, that they be strengthened as Christian fathers. Let the example of their faith and love shine forth. Grant that we, their sons and daughters, may honor them always with a spirit of profound respect. Grant this through Christ our Lord.
It is appropriate to pray for our fathers really any day of the year, whether they are deceased or alive, whether we think they are, or were, very good fathers or whether we feel they are, or were not, such good fathers. Perhaps, especially if one’s father were rather imperfect, it would be all the more important to pray for him.
My father died ten years ago, at the ripe old age of 92, on June 13th, 2011. I was blessed with an amazing father. What made him amazing in my mind? A lot of things, I suppose. One thing I liked about him was that when I was little, I could ask him any question that I could think of and he would have the answer. I remember my father encouraging me to be a good boy and later a holy young man. I benefitted from watching the way that my father loved my mother. It was clear that he loved my mother with his whole heart, respected her deeply and was completely devoted to her. When I wanted counsel about a certain decision I needed to make, I could ask my father for advice. I remember when I first told my father that I was considering a call to the priesthood, he was very surprised. He may have even been a bit disappointed, because, at the time, I was working with him on the management staff of the agribusiness that he had founded in 1951. Pursuing a vocation to the priesthood meant that my father and I would not be working side by side anymore doing something that both of us loved. Still, my father encouraged me and supported me in my studies as a seminarian and over the years in my various priestly assignments.
My father worked hard to support his family of twelve children. He sacrificed hobbies and interests in order that all of us could be fed, clothed, housed and educated. He took us on wonderful vacations and somehow made it possible for all of us to go to college. Yet, while he was a hard worker and a practical man, he was also very spiritual. Even though my mother was perhaps more naturally spiritual, my father was clearly the spiritual leader of the family. My father taught me much about being a spiritual father.
The “Blessing of Fathers” notes that we sons and daughters should honor our fathers “with a spirit of profound respect”. I think I can honor my father with profound respect by living and loving the way that he did. I am grateful that my father taught me how to be a man and how to be a father. He taught me how to be a son also, especially a son of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Although He was not a biological or adoptive father in the normal way, Jesus was and is a father. To be sure, He is a Son to the Divine Father in the Holy Spirit. But He is also a father to all who come to Him. Jesus is our Spiritual Father who heals us and loves us no matter what. Some have or had a rather imperfect father. If so, know that you can entrust yourselves to the fatherhood of Jesus and the fatherhood of the heavenly Father. All of us should learn to entrust ourselves to the fatherhood of God, whether that be to the Son or to the Father, or to both. That’s a good lesson for any son or daughter.
In Christ,
Fr. Berg
