Mariolina Ceriotti: Training to be a parent, day after dayLong live fathers! The ACdP extols the father figure in cities throughout Spain.Fathers, mothers and mothersThe figure of the male-father, in communion and complementarity with the female-mother, is truly great. However, for various reasons, in our culture there is an identity crisis with respect to the meaning and role of the father. Thus, for example, his authority is often misunderstood or misrepresented.
Therefore, we attempt to answer the question about the value of parenthood by considering its fundamental dimensions. But let us begin with the consideration of a significant analogy.
Protect
"-I am Aragorn, son of Arathorn, and if by life or death I can save you, so will I." These are the words of the heir to the crown of the kingdom of Gondor - addressed to the "hobbit" Frodo, the modest bearer of the ring of dark power that he must destroy, in a mission of decisive importance and almost impossible - in the famous epic The Lord of the Ringsby J. R. R. R. Tolkien.
The noble task of the ruler consists in safeguarding his subjects with prudence and fortitude, uniting them, defending them from their enemies, achieving peace, working selflessly for the prosperity of his people, consolidating the territory, guaranteeing the fulfillment of just laws, ensuring the exercise of fundamental rights and freedoms, promoting social initiative and solidarity with the most needy... The ruler who fulfills these functions deserves obedience and respect.
For his part, the father's mission is to protect, that is, to create a safe habitat for the members of his family. The diligent father uses all his strength and abilities to defend his family members: he strives and risks so that they can live and grow in a peaceful home, in a trusting environment; he passes on to them the inheritance of a dignified and profitable existence. The father manifests his responsibility towards his offspring: he considers them as a part or extension of himself, and takes care of them. Sigmund Freud was right to say: "I can think of no childhood need as strong as the need for a father's protection."
Giving life
To be a father means to unite oneself to one's spouse in order to beget in love: it means to offer the seed of oneself, to assume with grateful wonder the miracle of each human life and the fruitfulness of one's own flesh and blood in conjugal communion.
The process of human development involves the passage from filiation to spousal parenthood. To be a child means to recognize the gift received: to accept with a clear conscience the existence of someone who precedes me, of a good father and a good mother who have transmitted my being with generous love. The first consequence is joyful gratitude, in the form of respect and honor to those who have originated one's own life.
Commit
After discovering and assuming one's filial identity, one must advance in one's personal development until one reaches nuptiality. This implies the unfolding of the gift received through the effort in one's own maturation and growth, in order to reach the height of the great gift of humanity received.
The child leaves childhood and grows up: little by little he becomes an adult and becomes capable of commitment, self-giving and self-giving. The spousal dimension leads him to make promises in a deliberate way: in this way he establishes covenant bonds, becomes responsible for persons, assumes directive tasks in personal and community life. He also understands that he must remain faithful to the word he has given and loyal to the persons united to him by just bonds. Fabrice Hadjadj rightly points out that paternity "it is an adventure: the risk of a future for the other... as the father hides, pushing his children forward".
On the other hand, immaturity implies the irresponsibility of those who refuse to make commitments and do not want to live for others, but selfishly opt for their own interest or comfort. Then, his existence is frustrated: he stagnates in an infantile individualistic phase, does not reach the adult condition, renounces to grow; betrays his existential mission to make of his own life a gift; fails to fulfill his intimate vocation to transmit the life received, to take care of it and to increase it; breaks some link in the chain of the family tradition, renounces to his own role in existence, and harms the community. In this sense, the writer Mario Francis Puzo said: "a man who does not know how to be a good father is not a real man".
Guide
Pope Francis recalls that "Being a parent means introducing the child into the experience of life, into reality. Not to hold him, not to imprison him, not to possess him, but to make him capable of choosing, of being free, of going out".
In fact, the father - in collaboration with the mother - is the one who first inserts the new generations into the social and working world: he educates them in the importance of participating in a community as an active member; he also instructs them in the virtues of living together; he testifies to the need to resist in tribulations, to remain serenely in the assigned position, fulfilling one's obligations in the service of others. And, finally, every earthly father, being someone fallible, is called to show - with his humble and courageous example of overcoming - the importance of overcoming one's limitations and mistakes, as well as the courage to get up after falls and failures.
In short, the good father is a shepherd who guides his family: he defends, orients, leads, stimulates, feeds, nourishes, heals, corrects, offers rest and care, leads on the right path; he is a teacher of true values: he teaches the moral good; he shows by his life how to live in the truth of love; he communicates the memory of tradition, the wisdom of a people and its culture; he must be a reference, model and guide, pointing out the path and the meaning of life: he goes ahead, with perseverance, transmitting courage and hope. Truly, it is a sublime task: as G. K. Chesterton affirmed, "God chooses ordinary men as fathers to carry out his extraordinary plan.".
Reflect
In short, the proper presence of the father unites, soothes, comforts, balances, blesses. In this way, it leads towards the goal, it puts in contact with the roots and the end of life, with the transcendent God, source of all gifts.
Said C. S. Lewis said that the famous Christian writer George MacDonald "learned first of all from his own father that Fatherhood has to be at the heart of the universe." For every father is called to be, in the last analysis, a participation, a glimpse and reflection of God the Father himself, "from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named." (Eph 3:15).
