Now in adulthood, I have a deeper perspective on the Holy Trinity – my ‘divine family’ –as being the basis for Christian living. I have been fortunate to grow up in a loving family with a father who lived his life reflecting the divine love of the Holy Trinity. Being nurtured in a very tangible way through the example of my dad’s faith helped me understand and appreciate the gift of family. As a young teen, I remember my father’s admonition from Exodus: “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land your God is giving you.” It wasn’t a suggestion; it was a command that came with a promise. My dad had a quiet countenance, but when he spoke, I listened! He appealed to my sense of what was right and encouraged me to be good. Just as God the Father instructed His people and led them on the right path, even amidst great suffering, my dad led our family with a confidence that being good and doing what is right would bring us to eternity with our divine family.
Throughout several millennia, God has watched over His creation with providential love. Through the ministry, death, and Resurrection of Jesus, He has shown us mercy very personally. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit in each of us guides us on the daily path of truth. What is so magnificent is how God ordered the human family to live out His wise and benevolent plan. In the Holy Trinity we are given the totality of all we need to live a holy Christian life. I join St. Paul in praying:
“This then is what I pray, kneeling before the Father, from whom every fatherhood in heaven or on earth, takes its name. In the abundance of his glory may he, through his Spirit, enable you to grow firm in power with regard to your inner self so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love, with all God’s holy people you will have the strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth, so that knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond knowledge, you may be filled with the utter fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:14-19)
In Familiaris Consortio, John Paul II shares how earthly fathers “reveal and relive on earth the very Fatherhood of God.” Through my dad’s prayerful and faithful commitment to his role as husband and father, he led us to walk with God. His daily choices to pray and seek wisdom, to act charitably, and to put the welfare of my mom and his kids foremost taught me what the love of the Trinity looks like. By embracing his vocation as protector, provider, and teacher, my father made God’s love manifest in our domestic family. The older I get, the more I treasure this rich heritage I’ve been nourished in!
Pope Saint John Paul II also wrote that
“a man is called upon to ensure the harmonious and united development of all the members of the family… by exercising generous responsibility for the life conceived under the heart of the mother, by a more solicitous commitment to education, by work which is never a cause of division in the family but promotes its unity and stability, and by means of the witness he gives of an adult Christian life which effectively introduces the children into the living experience of Christ and the church.”
This type of earthly fatherhood is the embodiment of the divine being of God the Father in the most Holy Trinity.
As the national day to celebrate fathers follows shortly after the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity, it seems fitting to reflect with gratitude on the gift of our divine Father and our human fathers—as well as the rich heritage we may possess through them. My dad lived a full ninety-four years and made it his mission to evangelize us to his last breath. He never ceased to serve his children and was a witness to the importance of a personal relationship with the Trinity. He shared with us his prayers to his ‘daddy’ in heaven and to his favorite saints. He encouraged his grandchildren and great grandchildren to talk to God throughout the day and beg Him for help. He exhibited an abiding hope in gaining something good from every experience, good or terrible. His favorite expression to everyone he encountered was “everything is beautiful!” His peaceful, positive countenance is what everyone remembers of him. This countenance comes from his life lived closely under the protection of God our Father, his devotion to the Sacred heart of Jesus, and his willing surrender to the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. My earthly father was a gift who made the love of God real for me; I will be forever grateful.