The Faithnetworker Newsletter
Vol. 5. No. 3, June 13, 2004
http://www.faithnet.org
Fathers
Cool Scripture Cite
"For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear,
but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, 'Abba,
Father.'" (Romans 8:15)
Hot Internet Site
Endorsed by Gary Smalley and John Trent, fathers.com strives to "improve
the well-being of children by inspiring and equipping men to be more
effectively involved in the lives of children.. In response to a dramatic
trend towards fatherlessness in America." The site contains training
resources, inspiration, and a support community for fathers.
By Ricard Maria Cardinal Carles, Archbishop of Barcelona, Spain
One winter day, on a trip through my first diocese,
a mother told me how she managed to protect her children from the cold.
The family lives in a mountainous region. The home, very far from any
village, is on a plain, three thousand feet high. Temperatures in winter,
are extremely low there. But it does not snow so much that cattle cannot
go out into the fields. The cattle had to be taken out to the mountain
at least a few hours daily to graze. The mother would heat a bag of
water for her son who was taking care of the herd; he carried it slung
across his shoulders underneath his clothes, protecting him from the
merciless cold. The youngster felt protected while the water-–his mother’s warmth-–kept
its heat. Before returning, he would empty the water in order not to
carry a useless weight, and then the cold would start to get hold of
him.
This story reminds me of Dostoevsky's words: "When the Father goes
away, the children experience cold." God has given us a source of
vital warmth which consists of our faith: the Spirit within us, the grace
and love of God, and the direction God gives our lives. People today
seem to want to get along without all this; to feel freer and more independent.
Dostoevsky, in The Adolescent, expresses what it
is like to be without God: "Men, having become orphans, would
quickly press against each other; would hold hands, understanding that
from now on they are all one for the other. All that great excess of
love for Him who is immortality, would turn towards nature, men, every
blade of grass . . . Men . . . would quickly turn to loving one another,
knowing that their days are brief and that this is all that is left
to them. Everyone would give everything to all, and this would make
everyone happy."
But, as Cardinal Godfried Daneels says, when the
Father (God) disappears the children quiver with cold. If God disappears
from our personal and social horizon--and some among us seem to try
to achieve this by all means possible--we will find ourselves in the
midst of winter. Without God, any warmth is haystack fire, it only
lasts for an instant; it cannot give warmth to the children. On writing
this, I have recalled what the well known Father Eusebio Colomer, said: "the
death of God is the prelude to the death of man."
Monsignor Daneels goes on to say, "Remembering
that we are children of God can cure us, the entrance into a second
childhood, the moving from science to wisdom, from the head to the
heart. To discover God as Father and to enter with Christ in the childlike
experience. Christian faith consists basically in this. And this experience
is profoundly therapeutic for our civilization."