Happy Thursday!
In only a few short months, my father will be walking me down the aisle, giving my hand to my soon to be husband, entrusting to him the woman he has raised me to be today. Simply writing that sentence makes my eyes tear up. My fiance and I will be standing hand in hand, face to face at the altar before God, taking our entire lives that we have lived, and giving them to one another, forging them into one new life together. So much formation and preparation will lead us to this day in October, formation that began from our very baptisms. I would strongly argue that I would not be as spiritually and faithfully formed as I am today and going into marriage if it were not for the grace of having a good and holy father present throughout my life.
Growing up, I had plenty of memories with my dad. He played one of the biggest roles
in forming who I am today, and so much of my character reflects his: wanting to try new things, being competitive, loving the Lord and His Church, enjoying the outdoors,
understanding the satisfaction of a hard days work, oh, and just a teen smidge of
stubbornness. I had the blessing of a present father in my childhood who taught me a
lot of the harder lessons in life. One of these lessons, whether he knew he was actively
teaching it to, was what love is. Not only love between him and my mom, but how he
loved his kids, his friends, parish community, and country. Now of course, this particular article isn’t meant to discount the love my mom has, but my recent consecration to St Joseph has compelled me to write about fathers. I hope to explore with you, dear reader, the deep necessity for good fathers – how it affects our closest loved ones and society at large.
Again, as I did in my last commentary, I peer through the lens of the secular
world and see chaos and disorder. We have managed to convince ourselves that our
world can function even better without stable and present fathers. At my old job, I
encountered women who did not have present fathers, or had multiple come and go
“father figures” that were their mother’s current partner. This led to abuse in their
households, and a distorted image for these women of how men ought to be for women, and vice versa. The Institute for Family Studies did a study on college aged women at Mid-Western University and found that fathers had the biggest impact on how the women viewed relationships with a romantic partner, and the way the woman’s father behaved in his would likely mirror the way she let herself be treated in hers (D. Scott Sibley, 2019). For women, fathers are meant to guide them to what love is meant to truly look like in a relationship, and looking at America First Policy Institute, recent studies indicate that 1 in 4 children live in a home without a father (Jack Brewer 2023). I will link these articles below for you to do some further digging if you so please, but the gloom is not what I want to focus on in my reflections. But I want this to emphasize the urgency of my next point, and that is our beloved spiritual father, St Joseph, the spouse of the Blessed Virgin.
St Joseph lived a life of virtue for all fathers and husbands to model themselves
after. I do not want to look at him from a perspective of mere duty, but to examine the
fact that he lived the most ordinary life and it was filled with more love than any life
before or after. Often, I fear, St Joseph can be seen as a saint easy to ignore until it is
time to put his statue out on the lawn for the Nativity scene once a year. Often he is
depicted as an old man with a beard, twenty or so years older than the Blessed Virgin,
who is only there for the first couple of years in Christ’s life, when he dies of old age. Of
course we see him as completely irrelevant. Jesus was not raised only by his mother.
Jesus did not have St Joseph to cover up any suspicion of Mary having a child outside
of marriage. God did not put St Joseph in the life of Jesus to “cover up the tracks” of the miraculous Incarnation. No, in God’s goodness and plan for our salvation, He chose St Joseph to be a present father figure in the life of Christ because that is how strongly
necessary father figures are in life. The two entirely perfect human beings in the world,
completely without sin, needed a present husband and father figure in the house to lead them! Fathers and husbands are needed! Not only are they needed to just be around, but they are compelled to lead their families to goodness and truth! Jesus was not born knowing everything he needed to know ministry and how to love and how to be a good man, he had his father there to teach Him these things because he played a deeply necessary role in Christ’s life. Ergo, St Joseph plays a major role in our salvation, and fathers around the world have been given similar duties to bring their children up in the faith.
I guess you could say that St Joseph is someone who would know a thing or two about
being a good and holy father. His intercession is what our world desperately needs
today. I don’t have to cite those studies twice for you to see that we live in a world
lacking St Josephs.
Like I said, growing up I had a good father, and because I had a good father, I had a
good and holy mother, who together raised a good and holy family. Why should I keep
such a gift secret? My father taught me what love, honor, dignity, duty, and truth is. So,
if any fathers out there happen to stumble upon my testimony and you are soon or
maybe already have a young daughter, I hope you consider this. When you take her
arm at the back of the church and begin to march down that aisle by her side, will you
want to feel that you have truly given your all to raise her to be a good woman? Will she
look at you and think of all the lessons that you taught her, all the comfort you brought
her, and thank God for all the graces she has been given to have such a good father?
I really hope this can become a much more common occurrence between fathers and
daughters. Heaven knows we need it.
PS, Happy Birthday, Dad
Love you
Emily Murrey
Marian University, Class of ‘25
Theology, Music
Ora et Labora
Sibely https://ifstudies.org/blog/how-fathers-influence-their-daughters-romantic-relationships
Brewer https://americafirstpolicy.com/issues/issue-brief-fatherlessness-and-its-effects-on-american-society
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