Our Faithful Father

Americans take time today to honor and celebrate the fathers among us. They are the providers and guiders who set the tone, along with their wives, for the values and behaviors they hope to instill in their children. The challenges they face are great, for it seems that as in today's Gospel, a violent squall has arisen and our boat is being attacked on all sides by wind and waves. Jesus seems to be comfortably asleep on a cushion while the boat seems to be on the way down. Yet to every generation, to every father Jesus asks, "Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?" (Mk 4: 40). Faith here is not the faith of doctrine, but faith in the sense of trust. When Jesus calms the storm, the disciples ask, "Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?" (Mk 4:41). They do not yet know who Jesus is; and we, like them, do not know either, but can learn, as Jesus did, that his FATHER is the ONE who really provides the stability and peace we lack. Fathers, parents, then, need a deep faith, one which grows and learns day by day, in order to keep their families on course through the stormy seas of our times. In celebrating and honoring fatherhood today, let us pray that the faith of our fathers be based more and more in our Faithful Father in heaven.
Bro. Rene