Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time 2002 (A) -- "Fatherhood is more than a biological phenomenon."

(Eleventh Sunday of the Year (A): This homily was given on June 16, 2002 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I. by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Exodus 19:2-6; Romans 5:6-11; Matthew 9:36-10:8.)

"Fatherhood is more than a biological phenomenon."

Recently I read a book about the late Cardinal John O’Connor of New York. It was called, "Full of Grace," and it consisted of the recollections of people whose lives the cardinal had touched as a priest, as an officer in the military, and as a bishop. One of those who shared his story in the book was a man named Jim McHugh. Today I’d like to read you a healthy portion of his testimony. It’s a most appropriate story for Father’s Day weekend, and it ties in quite well with the content of the Scripture passages we just heard:

I didn’t have a father. I was a street kid in Chester [Pennsylvania]. My mother was never home—she was working in the mills. And I was out there running errands for gamblers. I stole ration stamps during the war, too, and I was dealing cards in mob gambling places when I was 13 or 14 years old. If I was hungry and didn’t have anything to eat, maybe I’d break into a dairy and get some milk. That was my life. . .

I was in public school, but my mother took me to St. James High School for the discipline. I had a high IQ, but academically, I didn’t know anything. I never studied. I didn’t know the structures of sentences.

When I got to St. James, the priests scared the hell out of me. They put me in with the smart kids. My family had no money, so in my senior year, I was getting ready to go to work in the shipyard. Then one day Father O’Connor calls me into his office. He was the guidance counselor then. He said, "I was looking over the college applications. Everybody in your class is going to college except you. Why not?"

I said, "Our family doesn’t have any money." I mean, college never came across my radar screen.

He said, "If I can help you out, if I get you into a school and get financial help and a job, are you willing to try college? Your IQ is so high, it might be the highest in the class, and I don’t want to see that wasted if I can help it. So, are you willing to try?"

I said, "Yeah, sure, I’m not afraid."

He called a priest a Xavier University in Cincinnati and hooked me up with a deal. I could pay tuition over time, I wouldn’t have to pay an entrance fee, and he got me a job. I said [to Fr. O’Connor], "What do I have to do?" And he said, "You don’t have to do anything. Just show up and pay your bills. And I’m going to tell you something, Jimmy. Once you realize the value of an education, you’re never going to stop."

So I got on a Greyhound bus to Cincinnati with 20 bucks in my pocket. I worked day and night, I did some boxing to earn some money, and I made the dean’s list. I really woke up and studied. Then I figured: I’m pretty smart—I want to go to Notre Dame. Why not reach for the stars? I contacted Notre Dame, but at the time, they didn’t take transfers. So I wrote back and got a priest to send them my grades, and they said, "Your grades are so high, we’ll accept you." So I went to Notre Dame, and worked on the railroad and dug ditches to pay the bills. I had one of the top averages when I graduated in 1954 and went to Fordham Law, and I’ve been practicing law now for 43 years. I’ve won a lot of cases all over the country. I’ve had a lot of positives in my life, and it all goes back to Fr. O’Connor. This guy has been an angel on my shoulder for 50 years. I’m married, with a wonderful wife, and one of my daughters graduated from St. Joseph’s College in Philadelphia and another from Notre Dame, and my son’s a lawyer who just bought a ranch out west. It’s amazing. I’d have been nothing without this guy—he took my whole life and changed it. He showed so much love for me. It just struck me recently that I didn’t speak English at the time I met him. I spoke hate. And when I think back, and I realize what this man did for me, how much love he showed, and how he turned me around.

To be honest with you, it wasn’t until about 10 years ago that I gave this any thought. I was busy raising a family and trying cases. Somebody asked me, "Was there anything that really inspired you?" And those words of his came back to me: "You’re never going to stop." He was right. I started to feel badly because I never bothered to thank Fr. O’Connor. My conscience started to bother me, and I wrote him a letter and said, "If you’re ever up for sainthood, you can count on me as one of your miracles."

Fatherhood is more than a biological phenomenon, as Jim McHugh’s testimony makes abundantly clear. Fatherhood is also about guidance, concern, discipline, faith, love and leadership. It’s about pointing your children (natural or spiritual) in the right direction; it’s about making sacrifices for them; it’s about going the extra mile for them; and it’s about being an example to them.

This is what God expects of all fathers, be they natural fathers (as so many of you are) or spiritual fathers (like yours truly). It’s part and parcel of the vocation! In fact, God, our heavenly Father, in accomplishing his plan for the world, has always counted on human fathers to be his willing and cooperative instruments. Moses, for example, was in a very real sense a "father" to the Hebrews. Through him the Lord brought his people out of slavery and into freedom. In today’s first reading, Moses fulfills part of his fatherly mission by sharing God’s word with the Israelites: he instructs them in the truth. This, by the way, is why every Catholic father needs to know Scripture and the Catechism. If he doesn’t, then he won’t be able to do what Moses did here; he won’t be able to instruct his children in the truth!

And wasn’t today’s second reading most appropriate for Father’s Day weekend? There, in that text from Romans 5, St. Paul talks about the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ, who offered his life for us—not because he saw how good we were, but precisely because we were not so good! Paul says, "God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Good fathers—like God—love their children even when their children are not very good; and they continue to sacrifice for their children even when their sons and daughters don’t appreciate their efforts.

And finally, in this text from Matthew 9 and 10, Jesus sends forth his apostles on what amounts to a "fathering mission." Jesus wanted these men to go out and to "father" sons and daughters into the family of God. That was his desire. He said to them, "Go . . . to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, make this proclamation, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons." In this case they were sent out to "father" Jews; later, in Matthew 28, he extended the fathering enterprise to include the Gentiles as well. Thank God, since most of us are Gentiles!

This, of course, should also be the part-time work of every earthly father, namely, providing for the spiritual welfare—as well as the physical welfare—of his children. But it’s supposed to be the full time work—the full time mission—of every priest. That’s why they call a priest "Father!" So it should come as no suppose that most good priests value that title more than all the others they may possess.

Many of you remember Monsignor Struck. Did you ever call him on the telephone? If you did, you will recall that he never said, "This is Monsignor Struck." He always said, "This is Father Struck," because that was the title he treasured the most.

So today we pray for our fathers, natural and spiritual, living and deceased. We ask the Lord to strengthen those who are living, so that they will fulfill their fatherly duties well; and we ask him to give eternal life to those who are no longer with us.

And finally, may those of us with living fathers take an important lesson from Jim McHugh. As he admitted in his testimony, many years went by before he finally said "Thank you" to his spiritual father, Cardinal O’Connor. May all good fathers throughout the world—and especially all the good fathers in this parish—not have to wait so long.