A few weeks after being ordained a priest, I received my first Father’s Day card. At that moment I realized just how heartfelt it is when Catholics call their priests “Father.” To a non-Catholic, the label seems a paradox, even a contradiction. Whatever a celibate priest is, the one thing he cannot be is a father. Right?
Jesus told his disciples to call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven (Mt 23:9). All human fatherhood, in other words, finds its source in God’s Fatherhood. Biological fathers generate life, support it, nourish it, and protect it. Christian fathers go still further. They also help their children go to heaven by praying for them, sacrificing for them, and guiding them along the path to God. Christian fathers, then, are not just natural but also—and even more importantly—supernatural fathers in the order of grace.
Celibate priests devote their entire lives to that highest degree of fatherhood. Their fatherhood is not a paradox, not a metaphor, not a pious exaggeration. All fathers exist to give life. Celibate priestly fathers do so in radical and profound ways when they celebrate the sacraments, preach the Gospel, and guide us along the path to God.
May we always give thanks for the spiritual paternity of the priests who have changed our lives. So go ahead. Send a Father’s Day card to your priest—and mean it with all your heart!
