Dear Parishioners:
From the Pastor’s Desk
Happy Fathers’ Day! May God bless and guide our fathers and may God the Father reward all our dads for all their sacrificial love for their children. The first Fathers’ Day was celebrated on June 19, 1910 in the state of Washington. However, it was not until 1952 that the day became a national holiday (58 years after President Woodrow Wilson made Mothers’ Day a national holiday).
Some Fathers’ Day “fun facts:”
- There are more than 70 million dads in the USA, with about 1/3 with kids under 18.
- Fathers’ Day is the 4th biggest day for greeting cards (after Christmas/Valentine’s Day and Mothers’ Day).
- Fathers’ Day is celebrated in other countries as well. In Europe, since the Middle Ages, Fathers’ Day was connected with St. Joseph’s Day since St. Joseph was the foster father of Jesus. Now, however, many European countries have also placed the celebration on the third Sunday of June.
- In Germany, on Fathers’ Day, men drink all day at beer gardens.
- In Thailand, Fathers’ Day is celebrated in December, and everyone wears yellow.
- Fathers are given bright yellow canna flowers (similar to a lilly).
- In Nepal, there is a ceremony in which sons touch their heads to their father’s feet and daughters touch their heads to their father’s hands.
Pope Francis has made some comments about fathers:
Fatherhood is giving life to others.
Like St. Joseph, you, too, must be guardians in age, wisdom, and grace.
Nothing could better express the pride and emotion that a father feels when he understands that he has handed down to his child what really matters in life, that is, a wise heart.
Being a father is not easy since it requires a lot of grace and patience.
Fathers are so necessary as examples and guides for our children in wisdom and virtue.
I ask that you have the grace to be very close to your children, letting them grow but being by their side. They need you, your presence, to be there, your love.
A father is present; he is close to his wife and children.
Without father figures, young people often feel ‘orphaned,’ left adrift at a critical moment in their growth and development… fathers are necessary as examples and guides for our children in wisdom and virtue.
Pope St. John Paul II stated:
Above all where social and cultural conditions so easily encourage a father to be less concerned with his family or at any rate less involved in the work of education, efforts must be made to restore socially the conviction that the place and task of the father in and for the family is of unique and irreplaceable importance.”
Remember: Together, we can do something beautiful for God. In Christ,
Fr. Brian