Happy Father’s Day!

A happy and most blessed Father’s Day to all our fathers! This Father’s Day is also Trinity Sunday, a feast that illustrates the integral role of fatherhood in the divine plan. In the Trinity, fatherhood has existed from all eternity: the relationship among the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity is defined in terms of fatherhood, sonship and the love that this relationship entails. Our Lord constantly speaks of Himself in reference to His Father throughout the Gospels and of the unity and love between them. He also reminds us frequently that His Father is our Father too and that He came to prepare a place for us in His Father’s house. “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (John 20:17).

But in His generosity God also desired to give us an earthly model of fatherhood and to illustrate in human terms the sanctity of this role and of family life, and so He chose for His Son an adopted father, St. Joseph, to be the model and guide of all fathers. And those of us who honor our earthly and spiritual fathers today find our own model in Jesus, Who, though being God Himself, submitted Himself to Our Lady and St. Joseph in love and obedience, and Who partook for thirty years in the hidden life of Nazareth.

As a Fraternity of spiritual fathers, we ask your special prayers today for our priests, that they may always carry out their duties with devotion and love. St. Joseph, patron of fathers, pray for us!