More from my recent address at the Archdiocese of Cincinnati priestly convocation ...
4.
We need
you to be present fathers.
We live with a crisis of
fatherhood in our country today. Many
fathers are unknown or later disappear, or are present in the photo album but
not at Tuesday night dinner, because the office has taken a greater priority than
the family.
Priests are true fathers. We need you to be fathers. We need you to be present.
In one month and a day, I am
going to be married. The priest who
prepared Brad and I for marriage is in a religious order living in a different
state. He is a vocations director. It just so happened that the time that we
were most available to meet with him extensively was during April – a month
that is filled with meetings, reference calls, psychological evaluations and
other activities for a vocations director.
Yet, our priest met with us for an entire weekend, eager to see that we
were well prepared for the Sacrament.
At the conclusion of our
meetings, we asked if he was familiar with the Rite of Betrothal. We knew very little about the rite ourselves,
but we knew it existed and were interested in becoming “betrothed,” not just
“engaged.” He promised to look into it.
The next day, Father contacted
me and asked if we would be available the following evening before my plane
departed, for him to celebrate the Rite of Betrothal.
We entered the chapel, where he
spent the next hour, not only celebrating the Rite of Betrothal, but also a
private Mass, with a homily and petitions prepared just for Brad and me.
I cannot begin to tell you how
touching it was that a priest who is particularly busy (and I know, all priests
are always busy) would spend an hour on a Monday evening praying with one
engaged couple and celebrating Mass for
us. When he said, “This is the Lamb of
God,” and held our Lord only inches away from our faces, I knew that Jesus
really was loving me in the
particular way in which He loves each of us.
This priest was a present
father to us – spending hours over a weekend, sharing meals, taking the time to
research a now-rare Rite in the Church and celebrating Mass for us. Father is a vocation director, not a parish
priest. He had no obligation to lead our
marriage preparation. This was a priest
whose fatherhood was evident in his interactions with us that weekend. This was a priest who touched us both with
his love of the human person as a unique and unrepeatable gift from God.
It is rare for us to have a
conversation with another person that is not interrupted by a text, a tweet, a
facebook update, an e-mail, a cell phone alarm or a phone call. It is rare to have the undivided attention of
another whose eye contact, focus and engagement witnesses to the belief that
each person is unique and unrepeatable.
In fact, a study in the United
Kingdom last year found that on an average “night out,” adults spend 48 minutes
on their smartphone.
It seems that a key component
of the New Evangelization is “simply” to be present.
Easier said than done,
certainly, especially with the rigors of parish life.
But we need present fathers.
We need you to engage us in
conversation, to remember our names, to ask us about our families, our
schooling, our hobbies.
We need you to spend time with
families during dinner.
We need you to have
conversations without being distracted by non-urgent phone calls, e-mails and
texts.
We need you to be interested
simply because we have been entrusted to you as your sons and daughters in the
faith.
One of my high school students
told me of a priest he knows who calls every one of his parishioners on their
birthdays, taking an hour or two of his time each day, but it is a task that he
finds important, and therefore finds the time necessary to execute.
We need you to model fatherhood
for men who are striving to be fathers to their families. And we need you to model fatherhood to all
those in your parishes, schools and communities who do not have a present
father.
