We find ourselves reaching June, marking the midpoint of this year of jubilee. In June, we celebrate the Month of the Sacred Heart and Father’s Day. As husbands are called to “love… as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her,” it is so fitting that Father’s Day is nestled into the devotional month of the Sacred Heart.
I recently heard fathers compared to the strong man in the parable from the Gospel of Mark 3:27: “No one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man; then indeed he may plunder his house.” The truth of the comparison struck me—and also made me chuckle. It is clearly true, as all the statistical evidence shows that fatherlessness leaves children vulnerable to a host of terrible fates and deep wounds, not to mention the fact that irreligious fathers leave their children vulnerable to rejecting the faith. This comparison also made me laugh because there’s a rumble in the culture—a call for a return to a strong-man identity that would find the strength of Christ to be foolishness.
The father is the head of the household, both in the natural and spiritual sense. He is the bulwark against threats to hearth and home. Today, in the West, because the bodies of men are rarely needed to bear the burden of that responsibility, the lie of feminism—that men and women are the same—has found a damp resting place to spread its rot through the culture. But to be specific, the lie is not simply that men and women are the same, but rather that women are the same as men. This means that women can replace men—not the other way around. Unfortunately, lulled by the appeal of sex without responsibility, men have mostly gone along with this nonsense. Thus followed the complete breakdown of the family.
You see in this lie the way in which the devil has bound the strong man—not in body, but first in spirit. In one way, he appeals to his carnal desires; in another, he whispers, "You are not necessary."
Sex without responsibility tells men that they may give in to the twisted desires of their sexuality—to set aside the personhood of the other in order to please themselves—and, adjacently, that the noble desire to be the hero is foolish and unwanted. Men who have assented to this lie bind their wills and minds. They bind their wills because, when we fail to develop virtue and habituate ourselves to vice, we lose the strength to do good—just as a man out of shape loses the freedom to choose to run five miles, throw a great distance, or lift a heavy object. He is bound in mind because he has chosen to lose sight of his purpose. Unfortunately, nothing has made men and women more miserable.
This depression in the masculine spirit has turned into a rising aggression. Cue the faux masculinity. This strain of thought is merely the old lie that men are superior to women and may therefore use them as they wish—which, interestingly enough, yields the same tragic results.
The true call to masculinity is, of course, found in Christ. The call to masculinity is not to dominate but to lead with love, carrying the burdens that those less powerful cannot. Christ, who is all-powerful, uses his power in service of those less powerful. He does not tread the lowly underfoot—he descends to meet them where they dwell. He delights in his bride and his children. He is confident in his identity as the Son of God, and he is obedient unto death. Lesser men make tyrants of their flesh and make others obedient unto them.
Some, if not many of us, have had the privilege to know the love of a father who has stood in the breach for us. Let us not forget those men who have denied themselves the promises of the flesh to quietly bear the burdens of their families. They deserve our honor and unyielding gratitude. They are by no means perfect, but they have answered the call. These men have taken up the hidden and silent office of St. Joseph. They are the domestic Church’s first line of defense—the true strong man.
It is a devastating poverty for the many who have suffered the absence of this man, whether through abandonment or distraction. I pray the Sacred Heart of our Lord would have pity on those who have abandoned their post, and reveal the Father's love to all those who have suffered from their neglect.