Real Fatherhood

Soon it will be Father’s Day, but, sadly, the fatherless children in America have little to celebrate. They also have some serious hurdles to face. 

• “63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes.” 
• “90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes.” 
• “85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes.”
• For more grim statistics click here. 

Their deepest difficulty, though, Pope Benedict reminded us in a recent Audience, is an invisible one: “The father’s absence … is a serious problem of our time. It therefore becomes difficult to understand what it means to say that God is really our Father.” 

If our fallible, earthly fathers “can disfigure the face of fatherhood” (CCC 239), how can kids with deadbeat dads restore a misconception that stunts their spiritual growth? A movie I watched recently got me thinking: “Real Steel”.

At the start of the movie, we meet Charlie, an immature ex-boxer who abandoned his girlfriend when they “accidentally” conceived a child. When the boy’s mother dies, Charlie collides with his eleven-year old son, Max. The little one hones in on Charlie’s gargantuan defects and jabs at his juvenile antics and worldview. 

“Anything you don’t need, you just throw it away?” 

In the end Max helps Charlie grow up and learn something about real fatherhood. Just as Max is beginning to see “Charlie” as “Dad,” he is wounded anew when Charlie makes moves to place him in a more stable home. Frustrated, Charlie vents, “What do you want from me?” 

Max comes back with a big blow: “I want you to fight for me. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.” 

Where did this underprivileged Superkid gain such virility and wisdom? The film, for all its endearing qualities, offers no explanation. 

Outside of the world of fiction, what hope is there of healing the scars of the fatherless? 

The Holy Father proposes a solution that should make us all think, no matter what kind of father we have. “From Jesus himself, from his filial relationship with God, we can learn what ‘father’ really means and what is the true nature of the Father who is in heaven.” 

The Pope turns the tables on us, just like St. Paul did: “I kneel before the Father (Gk. pater), from whom every family (Gk. patria) in heaven and on earth is named” (Ephesians 3:14-15). 

In other words, He’s not “Father” because He’s like us; rather, we’re real fathers in the measure we’re like Him. So instead of basing our image of God on our tattered relationships with our earthly dads, we should make the Heavenly Father our model of life-giving love. 

Is God’s method of fathering really that special, though? How helpful can it be in our complicated, concrete world? 

The Bible, in its entirety, is an answer to that question. For a modern, eloquent summary, I’d suggest Scott Hahn’s A Father Keeps His Promises. It unpacks Scripture’s central theme: “[Our Heavenly Father] longs to convince us of his passionate love for each one of us, that relentless mercy which calls—and enables—us to share his own divine life.” 

All dads are mirrors, and some reflect that divine light with pristine clarity, while others dim it considerably, but none can extinguish it altogether. We all do well, then, to give thanks this Father’s Day, but no matter the measure in which our earthly dads have delighted our hearts, “how much more will your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:11).

By Andrew Dalton