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June 18, is a special day to honor and pay tribute to you, father, our role model, who sets a good example for us to follow and emulate.

When we’re down and troubled, you’re there to listen and lend a hand. You cheer us up and brighten our day. You comfort us, keep us company, and inspire us with your life’s story.

You guide and strengthen us, protect us from worries and anxieties, teach us life’s  wonders and mysteries, challenges and changes and uncertainties.

Father, we thank you, for the life and love, peace and patience you share with us each day, and the support and service you provide us in our family at home and our country.

From Psalm 103:13, we read, “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on the faithful.”

A father loves his children just as they are. He cares enough to give the very best — himself! When his children are in trouble, he’s there to help. When they need wisdom, he offers counsel. When they make mistakes, he forgives. When they have successes, he rejoices with them. He recognizes that his strength comes not from human resources but from heaven’s grace.

A father is a man of God. He is God’s representative here on earth.

“God bless Father,” we pray. Why? Because if we want something, “Ask Father!” He is the source, the supplier, the giver (or refuser) of everything we ask for or expect from a father: to smoothen our path, to raise for us a mountain from which to hurl our dreams, to build us a shelter against the harms of life.

We need encouragement and enrichment that (only) a father can give or provide. He is the channel of both the necessities and the fun things in life, like sports and games, travels and road trips, campings and other activities that are a source of fun and enjoyment. These enrichments and encouragements we seek from dad or papa with love!

With the intercession of St. Joseph, foster father of Jesus and our spiritual father, and the patron saint of all fathers, we pray, “May God bless all fathers and grandfathers!” Amen.

Happy Father’s Day!

 

Chris A. Quilpa, a retired U.S. Navy veteran, lives in Suffolk and Chesapeake. Email him at chris.a.quilpa@gmail.com.