This year’s Father’s Day (and Mother’s Day) celebrations take on deeper meaning in our modern American culture. Whether we are looking at Baltimore, Hartford or to the future Philadelphia’s papal visit focusing on family life, the role of parenting in our modern culture is at a crossroads. The telltale signs of the abdication of parenting by some have led us to a confused world where the human family is in trouble. Perhaps this is not so much the case in the Simsbury’s of the world but certainly where families are broken or parents are seeking to win popularity contests by being “best friends” rather than parents to their children, the “new” family structure is leading us into a culture of disrespect and heartache. How can one expect a young child to grow up with a healthy self-esteem even hope for the future when the home environment is nonexistent? No role models, no family life to imitate, no structure in which to be formed, and with little respect for the human person does not a healthy citizenry make. Look at the outcome: poverty now means that rules can be broken, cities can be burned, and life can be overruled. What about the poor who came before us—the Irish, the Italian, the German, the Vietnamese, and many others of the “huddled masses” who also were poor, uneducated and without daily luxuries yet who not only didn’t burn down their villages or riot-their-homes into piles of debris, but rather built their cities and communities with hope—hope for a better future. They did this because of families and communities calling them to something greater—not to be bitter, but to be better.

Perhaps the breakdown of the human family—hit hard by easy and multiple divorces, by children being born out of wedlock as a regular occurrence and readily accepted by all, with faith no longer regularly practiced in the home and community, and with the loss of positive role models needed to recognize each person as the image and likeness of God—a father and a mother—calling their children to a better life and from whom the children learned what it means to be fully human, needs to be center stage again.

As we come together both as families and as a Church this Father’s Day, let us remember that the day is much more than a Bar-B-Que in the backyard or gifts for Dad or some quiet time to watch a favorite sporting event, but rather it is about the rebuilding of the human family; it is about gratitude for our parents and their selflessness, and about respect given and offered—more importantly it is about being cooperators with God in His plan for recreation and salvation in and through the family. Perhaps this will give us a new perspective on these two days of celebration (Mother’s and Father’s Day) and on God’s plan for everyone.