As we conclude the 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time, I would like to say to all Father’s Biological, Adopted, Foster, Spiritual, Priestly:
The LORD bless you and keep you!
25The LORD let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you!
26The LORD look upon you kindly and give you peace!* Numbers 6:24-26
Fathers are very important to family life! I would like to thank my father, my dad who has been in Heaven since I was 18! He taught me a lot. He taught me my faith, first and foremost. He taught me kindness, my dad never met a stranger. My dad knew right and wrong and taught it, with charity, kindness and firmness. He was a kid at heart and yet responsible. He taught me the value of suffering by his example.
I am proud that he was career Air Force. Even there his faith was important. As a single man in the AF he would help in the chaplains office on his time off. We often had priests and or seminarians over for Sunday dinner!
He had sever heart disease and in 1984 he was having a triple bypass. Doctors only gave him a 30% chance of surviving the surgery, but as dad said at least it gives him a chance, without the surgery I don’t have a chance. He lived almost 5 more years after that! I know that he was a witness to the medical staff as well, with his positive, prayerful, joyful attitude. (His surgery was at a time when the surgical team always asked the patients if they could pray with them before going into surgery) Of course my dad said “Yes”
My dad was great with kids. With me, my friends, the kids in my mom’s daycare, the kids who lived in our home. They always came to him. They were very willing to follow his instructions. Sometimes this surprised me because I didn’t see the child as good. My dad would say that “the child isn’t bad, but untaught”. He would always quietly say to a child sitting with us or near us in Mass, “when the alter boy rings the bell, and Father elevates the host/challis, then it is Jesus on the altar!”
My dad could pray the rosary in his sleep. I mean when he was falling asleep he would be quietly praying his rosary, moving his fingers along the beads, and in the morning he would know where he was in the rosary. It was on a different mystery from the one he was praying when he fell asleep. His fingers would be in the right spot. I’d ask him how he did this and he would say “I guess my guardian angel helps out when I am asleep.”
My dad learned his faith from his father, and I am going to guess he also learned suffering from his father as well as from his relationship with Jesus! I would say that even the priests had an influence on my dad’s faith life. He grew up attending Old St. Patrick’s Basilica in the Little Italy section of NY., and he often spoke proudly of serving Sunday and daily Mass. He also knew Archbishop Sheen, who I am sure had an impact on his faith life!
My dad also fostered my love of Life, that all life is important from the moment of conception to natural death. He taught this in word and deed. When the Life chain started, my dad took us, faithfully every year. Fathers are the defenders of Life!
I also have many priests in my life who have been Spiritual Father’s to me and others! I thank them as well and continue to pray for them.
Gospel reading for the 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
GospelMT 10:26-33
Jesus said to the Twelve:
“Fear no one.
Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed,
nor secret that will not be known.
What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light;
what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.
And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;
rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy
both soul and body in Gehenna.
Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin?
Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge.
Even all the hairs of your head are counted.
So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
Everyone who acknowledges me before others
I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.
But whoever denies me before others,
I would also like to ask all Father’s physical and spiritual who have not read The Father who Keeps His Promise by Scott Hahn, to please do so. Get a few dad’s together and read it as a Bible study. It is powerful!
My you have a Blessed Week!
Sr. Catherine Nagl, Daughters of Mary, Mother of the Good Shepherd