Why Fathers Are Essential to God’s Plan
We continually hear about the crumbling of western civilization. When we survey the current situation of the Church, the defragmentation of the family, the breakdown of marriage, and the ongoing lack of respect for life, one cannot help but to ask: How did this happen?
Recently the Catholic World Report quoted Dr. Patrick Fagan who said that the pivotal turning point was the rise of radical feminism in the late 1960s. All of the founders of The National Organization for Women (NOW) were women who had bad relationships with their fathers. A key figure was Kate Millet who at feminist gatherings would begin by chanting the following formula:
Why are we here today? To make revolution. What kind of revolution? The cultural revolution. How do we make cultural revolution? By destroying the American family. How do we destroy the family? By destroying the American patriarch. How do we destroy the American patriarch? By taking away his power. How do we destroy his power? By destroying monogamy. How do we destroy monogamy? By promoting promiscuity, eroticism, prostitution and homosexuality.
Welcome to our reality.
Did you notice that the key to destroying the family and marriage is to destroy the patriarch: the human father? As our Lord said, “No man can enter into the house of a strong man and rob him of his goods, unless he first bind the strong man, and then shall he plunder his house. ” (see Mk3).
The evil one knows that the key to destroying the Church, the family, holy marriages and ultimately society, is to sideline, distract, intimidate and paralyze the “strong man,” the human father from his noble role of being the guardian and protector of woman, the child, the family and the Church.
There is a lot of talk about what it means to be a man. Manhood is not a destiny, but a stage between boyhood and fatherhood. A man can take care of himself, but a spiritual father enters the realm of responsibility and sacrifice for others. A spiritual father, like God our Father and His Son Jesus, take on the responsibility of leading, saving, protecting, and providing for those in his care – even if it demands his life.
If destroying the human patriarch was the key to unraveling society, then the key to converting the world, renewing the Church, restoring the family, and revitalizing marriages will begin when the man who is father and leader becomes like St. Joseph, a father on earth like the Father in heaven.
Society goes by way of the family; the family goes by way of the father. If we want to change the world, we fathers must change. It is time to lead.
Comments 1
These words echo the reality in my heart which in its own absence of a father to care for and love me by affirming my femininity, my unique personality and my destiny, was left like a raft adrift in a the great sea of life and everywhere at sea I didn’t see that there was that father my heart longed for. I did, however, see it in one man, my godfather … who somehow shone a light for me of what a true man was like. My whole being will be in prayer and love for all men and in particular the Fathers of Saint Joseph that God may do in you what the name ‘Joseph’ means in Hebrew – “prune away what is sterile and increase what will be most fruitful”. Fiat!