Fatherhood: Learning to Be a Good Son

Being a good father requires first learning to be a good son. One learns to be a good son through the primary means of learning: discipline. Before trying to discipline, either great or small, one must have the integrity needed to endure discipline: to admit when one is wrong and make amends and to, when one's convictions are solid and true, never waiver from them. Deviation from the principles so clearly and deeply held turns what was once a monument to discipline and healthy relation into a mausoleum of the dead, dry bones of a righteous man turned hypocrite. The principles held so closely then become an alabaster box that no one dares to open, lest the skeleton comes tumbling out in macabre fashion.

It is never too late, if one still has breath to speak, to turn back and ask for forgiveness. Likewise, it is never too late to forgive for past injustices. Our hearts are restless until, in Him, we see both so very clearly and experience both concurrently.

"But for the Grace of God Go I..."

Remembering that you are forgiven is a relieving truth. Even greater is the truth that you have that gift for others. Love is not lost in the loosing act of forgiveness but in the binding of the unforgiving act of a hard heart towards self and others. This is the most debilitating action one can choose; it is a failure to forgive, a détente of false peace when true peace is attainable and promptly accessible if one only acts. It is a failure of proper perspective and self-worth.

But for the grace of God go I... Grace because I could not persist in hope by my affliction alone. Hope because hope sees through the thin veneer of the present. Affliction because the present has not been made the future at once. Love because Love does not count the hours against the Beloved until the words are spoken: "Forgive us of our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."

Guard jealously the forgiveness you've been given. Do not let it be taken away willingly or in piecemeal to doubt or temptation. You have sought forgiveness, and it has been given to you. Do not let temptation hold its sway to the lies and its progenitor.

You have been washed in the Blood of the Lamb. Do not sully your bright white garment. Do not sin. His gift is greater than the temptation at hand to fall. Remain close to Him. His grace is sufficient.

Grace Abounds

When dealing with a life bereft with poisonous temptation, as though living in a foggy swamp of noxious fumes, let us not grow weary in prudent combat against despair and malady. This is our great boon. As St. Paul writes: "Where sin is, grace abounds all the more" (cf. Romans 5:20). So it is with us. Grace is not for those who are comfortable; it is for those who are afflicted, bereft, and in need. That is why "the last shall be first" (cf. Mark 10:31).

Grace abounds "all the more" because of need, not because we have earned anything! Our place is with the Lord, no matter if we are the Faithful Son or the Prodigal Son.

Remember this when worried about the appearances of others or oneself. It is better to seek after mercy for oneself or another than it is to be quicker to condemn than our Lord. To "settle on the way" (cf. Matthew 5:25) and, in haste, to return to Him is better than a thousand days of doubt before our Lord. Forgiveness is not first in the judgement but in the asking, and it is in the judgement that, faithful to this command to love one another, we may see not only the grace of Holy Communion in this age, though beset with persecution (cf. Mark 10:30) and temptation to despair, but also Union with him in the Eternal Life to come with Him in the next.

Let us not grow hasty in our understanding of this sublime gift of grace and Holy Communion, and let us not delay in making our holy confession of guilt before Him. Let us not deny His love or refuse to share it fully. This is our "sacrifice of praise" (cf. Psalm 50:23), that He might be glorified in His love for us. Take courage in His love.

"Offer to God praise as your sacrifice
and fulfill your vows to the Most High.
He that offers praise as a sacrifice glorifies me;
and to him that goes the right way I will show the salvation of God." - Psalm 50:14, 23

"O God, who provide gifts to be offered to your name
and count our oblation as signs
of our desire to serve you with devotion,
we ask of your mercy
that what you grant as the source of merit
may also help us to attain merit's reward.
Through Christ our Lord."
(Prayer over the Offerings, Tuesday of the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time)

So much surrounds these words above, which came to me after a weekend at Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston, "the First Week After Pentecost" (in older usage) or, in the more commonplace, the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time. The Responsorial Psalm of daily Mass that Tuesday was that of a frequently used phrase in the the Anglican Use of the Roman Rite, which speaks of vows and devotion. It is used at the end of the period of announcements and blessings (especially birthdays and wedding anniversaries). It speaks so beautifully to the wedding feast that is just then about to commence... that wedding feast where, so beautifully, grace abounds.

Confession

In my loneliness,
I have reached out.
In my pain,
I have sought dry wells of grace.

I have sought things,
Things that are not my own,
Things I should have not,
Things that do not satisfy the thirst.

In my loneliness,
I have have failed one; I have failed all.
In my pain,
I have sought an empty place.

In my sorrow,
I have run.
In my pain,
I have run from guideposts of grace.

I have run from hearts,
Hearts ready to love,
Hearts ready to give,
Hearts filled with good things.

In my sorrow,
I fall down.
In my pain,
I fall to my knees.

Forgive me, Lord:
It is You whom I seek.