This weekend we celebrate Father’s Day in the United States and while this Sunday’s readings may seem completely unrelated to the holiday, I can’t help but think of Dad. It is true, we are a universal Church and this Sunday’s readings wouldn’t have been gifted to us because it is Father’s Day. Everywhere else in the world it is just the Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time, and yet I find myself thinking of my father — Rich Guerra.
This weekend’s readings are filled with really honest and tough talk. The ancients tell us that we will mourn, Paul emphasizes his radical equality, and Christ tells us of the inevitable suffering of the Savior, and yet still, I think of Dad. That may seem like a dark vision of fatherhood, but I think it is really beautiful. My father often says of the day his first child was born, “My life ended in the best way.” He knew immediately that a great parent denies himself first, not in the knowledge of losing something, but of gaining something. That’s Rich. Always putting his wife, children and grandchildren first.
It has been said of the Guerra children (I have an older sister and a younger brother) that we have the pretentiousness of royalty, and I think that is true. Our arrogance stems from not thinking ourselves great,, but thinking of our parents as a king and queen. Certainly my father treated my mother as his complete equal, his queen. And like all great kings, like Jesus, if I may be so bold — a comparison my father would never allow — my Dad over and over again has denied himself, taken up his cross every day and followed his King, his Lord, Jesus. The highest compliment one can give a child is that they are well-raised. “You was brought up right!” as they say down South. While I’m not a parent, I was exceptionally well-raised, any straying was on my own and not the fault of parentage.
So, to the artist, the old hippie: Thank you for teaching me that the meaningful life, the purposeful life, is the selfless one. Thanks, Dad.
Happy Father’s Day.
I’ll be seeing you,
Elliot