Full text of homily for twelfth Sunday of ordinary time, June 20, 2010.
Fr. Anthony Brankin
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One of the most beautiful statues ever sculpted by my favorite, Gianlorenzo Bernini, was a life size marble of one of the ancestral founders of Rome, Aeneas—It portrays a young, strong Aeneas, fleeing from the fall of Troy. But what makes it special is that Aeneas’ elderly father is so tenderly perched on his son’s shoulders. There the father of Aeneas, frail and weak, is being carried away from Troy by his faithful son on the son’s very back.
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In the father’s hands are clasped the little religious statues that every good Ancient family had in their home. These were called the household gods. And you realize that the father of Aeneas saved the household gods out of gratitude—because were it not for those gods, his son would have never loved his father enough to put him on his back and take him out of Troy. In other words, the father of Aeneas—and Aeneas—knew that none of them—father or mother or children were self-sufficient—but all—especially the father—needed God and needed to love Him and acknowledge Him (or their gods) or they would never be able to love one another enough to sacrifice for each other.
Now, you see something similar in the movie Gladiator. There is a scene before some big fight in which we see the brave, noble ex-general Maximus—now reduced to a slave, a gladiator—we see him pull out a little sack containing his little statuettes—his household gods. And he sets them up and he prays to them, and he asks these gods to take care of his family who live so far away in Spain. He who is powerless as far they are concerned knows that only the gods can help his wife and children.
I used to see something like that at home when I was just a little child. In those days my father was a patrolman walking his beat on 63rd Street. And I remember distinctly how everyday he’d strap on his gun—put one hand on the dining room table and go down to one knee—make the sign of the cross, and bow his head in a short prayer. I remember asking my mother, “ Ma, why does Pa pray before he goes to work?” And my mother said, “So he’ll come back safely to us.”
Oh, that was a great lesson for a little 4 or 5 year old boy to learn from his father- that even tough Irish cops with guns on their hips and a club at their side knew that they needed God—for they were not all-sufficient-unto themselves—that even cops and fathers of families are mortal.
These strong men prayed because they recognized their place in this world—they recognized that there was a God and God’s laws above them—a God to whom they owed their lives, their prayers, their sacrifices. They knew that to step away from God and His laws was to invite the death for them and for their families. But to cling to God and to pray to Him was the way they could best provide for their families. They knew that everything in their home—health, wealth and safety for their families—followed upon their attachment to God.
All traditional societies knew this, but the Romans had a name for it—they called this kind of person “Pious”. This in fact is the real meaning of the word “pious” and it is why countless emperors and twelve popes used it as a name. It does not mean “piety” in the modern American sense of sweet and somber looks, posed hands and heavenward gazes.
In the Ancient Roman sense, a pious person—and for our sakes on Father’s day we can say a father —was stronger than others, because he was aware of who he was. He was neither all-knowing nor all-powerful—for those are qualities that belong only to the Divine One. He was a mortal—under God. But when he recognized that, that made him the most strong, noble and manly of all. To defer to the Author of all Law was to achieve genuine authority. He was pious. He knew his duties to God, to man and to his wife and to his children.
For the pious man, there would be no doubts as to what needed to be done. He must give up his life for the sake of those to whom he pledged his life.
The pious man—the good father—the strong father—the manly father must offer himself—his body and soul—his nights and days to those to whom he has given his word—his spouse whom he is to love as he loves himself and the children who are the fruit of that love.
The pious man must be like Christ Himself. He must be ready to sacrifice his life so that his family might live. He must die for them—if that’s what it takes. But before it comes to that—he must love them and cherish them as Jesus would.
“If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”And is not a father called by God Himself to give up his life for his family as for God?
Now a modern father may not have all kinds of opportunities to actually die for his family. Some day he may get those opportunities. But a modern father must still give up things in his life for their sake.
He must sometimes go against his more aggressive nature and be gentle to his wife and children. He must not be crabby or rude. He must be kind as Jesus was kind. No father should say he is willing to give up his life for his family if he cannot hold his wife’s hand.
Fathers must make sure their wives and children are fed—before they take any food. Fathers must go without so that their wives and families can survive. This at least is the ideal and what fathers and their families must strive for. Our fathers need to be pious. They need to know they cannot do it alone and without God. They need to know that they must pray to the one true God for the strength they need to raise their families—or their families will die. It is that simple.
The problem is that we live in a profoundly im-pious world—a world that does not believe in God or that God has a place in our families. Our impious world teaches fathers to be impious.
“Hey, real men don’t have to go to church—that’s for women and children. Manly men sit home and watch football and swear and drink. Manly men are rude and crude and take what they want.” At least that is the ideal proposed to us on television and movies 24/7. We may not do those things exactly, but in this impious society—they are held up as the ideal. You may say, “Oh that is that old-fashioned stuff. It doesn’t apply anymore. We are moderns—we do it differently.”
Nowadays modern men do not have to marry the women with whom they live. No vows, no commitments—no promises, no pledges. And since a father like that doesn’t even give his children his name —he doesn’t seem to owe them anything else either—pretty neat and pretty clean—and pretty selfish. No need for those kinds of fathers to pray— they only take care of themselves.
And then of course there are the modern men who did take vows once, but have decided to take up with someone else and abandon the family that God gave them. They say they do this for their personal happiness. A pious father who knows his duty does not worry about whether he is happy—but whether or not his wife and children are happy. Because they—not he—are all that count.
Modern understandings of men and marriage are not pious and therefore they make men that are neither manly nor fatherly. And I am convinced that these modern understandings are the impulse behind birth control and abortion and assisted suicide and euthanasia.
When a father says that another child or another grandparent to take care of is asking too much sacrifice—it is too much burden—and that he will encourage his wife to find a method—either by pills or medical procedures to eliminate that extra burden—well—that is not what real men do. Real men shoulder the burden and help their wives raise those babies or put their dads on their backs and carry them to safety. That’s what real men do.
But in order to be strong enough to support their wives, arm in arm, as the two of them raise their children, fathers must be prayerful. We need to see fathers on their knees praying the Mass, praying the rosary, receiving Holy Communion, going to confession.
And when our men are traditionally pious, then they will be traditionally manly—full of duty and honor and responsibility— for the lives God has placed in their care.
I truly believe that when the men of a parish—or society for that matter—are the fathers they need to be, then the women of the parish can be the mothers that God has called them to be.
And lo and behold their children will know the happiness of a family with a father and mother and children all in sweet accord. They will know what it is like to have God calling the shots in their home. They will know what it is like to live in a real Catholic home. And there’s nothing happier than that.