On Father’s Day, my wife and kids always do a spectacular job of spoiling me, making me feel like a much more fantastic father than I really am. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a good father, but I’m not nearly the father that I want to be. Being a good father has always been my highest priority, and I owe this internal desire to my own father, which is kind of strange since he was never around.
My parents were divorced when I was very young. I recently heard a great speaker, Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers, describe divorce like this. He says that marriage is a cross for both husband and wife, something to carry together throughout life. When parents divorce, they give up and put down the cross, and the children have to pick it up and carry it. I can definitely identify with that.
I grew up living with just my mother, who did the best that she could for me. I rarely saw my father, and we didn’t communicate at all for many years, until about a year before he died. I can never thank God enough for bringing us back together to reconcile before he passed away. Though I spent very little time with my father after age eight, I learned many things from him.
Though my father was not much of a husband to my mother, he was a decent father to me. He took me places and let me steer his old Ford truck down the winding road to our home. He coached my baseball team and always told me he was proud of me and that he loved me. He never got annoyed when I followed him around, amazed at the way this giant human could do things like barbecue steak and operate a lawn mower. He always let me be involved, and made me feel important.
My father was about as bad as they come at keeping contact with the people close to him. After I grew up, he never returned the letters I wrote. But before and after he died, I met all of the people that had grown close to him in my absence, and they expressed to me how selfless my dad was — how much he had sacrificed for them. He gave complete strangers shelter under his roof, he gave money to people who would never repay it, and he informally fostered kids and grandchildren who were of no blood relation to him. When I first learned of all this, I was a little jealous. The fact that my father seemed to care more for these other people than he did for me was really painful. What I came to realize was that my dad lived in the moment. He helped those people that God put before him, and he would have certainly helped me if I had shown up on his doorstep.
For years I tried my best to wish my father into being something that he wasn’t, rather than accepting and loving who he was. I realize now that my father helped people who needed much more than I ever did. I had a loving, supportive mother, and every opportunity in the world. Life has been very good to me. Without my father, several other less fortunate people may not have made it to adulthood.
Just as my father was never what I wanted him to be, God never works in the ways that I expect him to. God’s plan always seems to be better than anything I could come up with. This situation is no different. I had to suffer a little, but my suffering allowed my father to alleviate the much larger suffering of many more people.
You can learn something from everyone, and I’m grateful for the lessons that I learned from my father. I miss you, Dad, and I hope my prayers are reaching you.
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On a personal note, I have recently re-adopted the Liturgy of the Hours as my firm purpose of amendment. Without the Divine Office, I tend to start my days on a very positive note, but as soon as I get out into the world I find it much too easy to slide into my old ways. The structure of this form of liturgical prayer helps me make sure that I take time throughout the day to turn my thoughts toward God. The Liturgy of the Hours has become my strength in the never-ending battle against the rampant hedonism of our time.
Before Mass this morning, I noticed the beautiful Easter bouquet in the apse of my church. It struck me how perfect the nature of a flower is. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “each creature possesses its own particular goodness and perfection,” and “each of the various creatures, willed in its own being, reflects in its own way a ray of God’s infinite wisdom and goodness.” 
