Fatherhood
The conversation covered announcements for local events, including a Eucharistic procession and Mass. It also included a discussion on the concept of fatherhood, contrasting ancient Greek views with the Christian perspective of a loving, non-threatening father. The speaker emphasized the importance of recognizing God as a loving Father and the beauty of being part of His family through baptism.
MC: Adam Hohn
Parochial Vicar: Tyler Arens
Presenter: Joseph Gruber
Deacon: Rick Freedberg
Brought to you By: The Knights of Columbus
Audio Trasnscription
participantOne:(0-25900): Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen.
participantOne:(26140-53160): Welcome to the second Saturday for court for the month of June. Does anybody know about any any goings on here locally in Jackson? This is for all the parishes. Next week, the 21st, there's a Eucharistic procession and Mass is at the Lognath Stadium. And then for those who want to process
participantOne:(53780-85880): with the Bishop of the Holy Eucharist. They're going from Lentenium to then on Sunday there will be a Eucharistic procession, or excuse me, a Corpus Christi procession on Sunday at 3. Oh, sorry. It's from St. John's to St. Joe's. Yeah, so they're going to go from the church to the school and then up the hill to St. Joe's. Go to 230, start 1.
participantOne:(86460-119340): Check your local bulldozer. Not a shotgun, sir, but just to start. For the breakfast in two weeks, the fourth Saturday, I'm going to circulate behind a plate. Thanks, Mark. Yeah, with that, make sure you're inviting men to the breakfast. So you might want to write down an additional couple numbers if you're planning on inviting men to the breakfast.
participantOne:(121620-161620): Be careful downtown, especially today. There's some protests going on, political protests, and there's possibly busing of people in for them. Just be aware. I know it's downtown, Withington Park. I know the park. Michigan Avenue and First Street.
participantOne:(163660-198160): Well, I guess with that, we don't have any other announcements. We know that we'll be here next weekend as well, here in the basement. And I think we've got two speakers lined up for next weekend, so double the fun. But this week we have Joseph, who's going to be speaking about our topic this month about fatherhood. So welcome, Joseph Gruber. Thank you. Shall we pray? In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Amen.
participantOne:(198400-228540): Direct, O Lord, our actions by thy holy inspiration, and carry them on by thy gracious assistance, that every word and work of ours may begin in thee, and by thee be happily ended. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. In the beginning. Those three words are epic. In the beginning. They call to mind the kind of voice of a Charlton Heston, the kind of grandeur of the stars
participantOne:(229620-266020): In the beginning, and I think we all know what follows. Check me if I got this right. In the beginning, out of primordial chaos, came Mother Gaia, the Earth. And Mother Gaia, Earth, breathed forth the heavens. And he was called Oranus. And Oranus lay with his mother, Earth, impregnating her repeatedly, bringing forth scores of children, the Titans. Cool.
participantOne:(266980-301100): some of which he regarded with horror, some believing because these creatures were so ugly, others because they were so powerful. Regardless, he put them back within the earth, hid them within her, and in their mighty struggles, she cried out in pain. And so one of the children of Uranus and Gaia took forth a scythe and castrated his father, Uranus.
participantOne:(302020-337740): making him the mightiest of all. This was Kronos. Kronos took his sister Rhea and lay with her. But he had heard a prophecy that one of his children would be his undoing. And so Kronos, after each child was born of Rhea, devoured that child. Until the seventh child, when the now impotent Uranus
participantOne:(338020-371860): and Gaia and Rhea conspired to hide the child, and in his place they put a stone. So Kronos took the stone and swallowed it in the stead of that child. That child was raised by Gaia, and that child was known as Zeus. And Zeus, when he reached full maturity, conquered Kronos and expelled his older siblings from the innards of Kronos. Zeus, then being the youngest,
participantOne:(372780-408160): but also then the mightiest, took over and he became the king of the gods and reigned for Mount Olympus. That's obviously what most people think of, right? When they hear the words in the beginning they think of this story. But for the ancient Greeks, you know if you go a little counterclockwise on the Mediterranean, for the ancient Greeks that is what they thought of the beginning. They thought from the beginning there was something chaotic and then something maternal,
participantOne:(408800-437840): and then something paternal. And the paternal was the last thing, and the paternal was the rapey thing, and the paternal was the incestuous thing, and the paternal was the violent thing, and the paternal was the one that rejected the offspring. And that was the image of fatherhood. Fatherhood was the kind of thing where the son would look at his father and say, I want to castrate you.
participantOne:(439640-476140): And where the father looks at the son and says, you are my biggest threat. I want to devour you. You may think that I was making up that story, but if you go to Hesiod's Theogony, Hesiod's Theogony, if you look at the 100 great books, it's often listed as one of the first of the great books. It's a very, very short poem, epic poem, about the creation of the Greek gods and of the Titans. And this informed...
participantOne:(476620-514480): the culture. This informed their understanding of what it was to exist, not just to be a human, but for all of existence to be imprinted with this image that fatherhood came last, that fatherhood came violent, that fatherhood came judgmentally. And it makes sense when we look at the concept of fatherhood, gentlemen, it is a really rough deal for men. If I love my wife and we live as husband and wife,
participantOne:(514939-550720): I get 100% of her attention. But if I get 100% of her attention, nine-ish months later, I will lose her attention. I will have been the cause of the lack of the attention that I crave for my wife. That is what I get by being a father, is that I introduce into my own home the biggest threat to my relationship with my wife. And that's just from the beginning of fatherhood.
participantOne:(550920-580340): But then if I allow my children to live, Oh wow. If I allow them to live, after I have peaked physically, mentally, they are coming into their strength. Not only have I created the biggest competitor for my wife's affection, I have created the biggest competitor
participantOne:(581020-611080): for myself in my role in society. My children take on characteristics of me. They oftentimes have the same aptitudes that I do. They can do similar things as me. That is one of the things to be a son. My sons will be able to best me. They will replace me. And with the way that our biological clocks are wired, I'm still going to be around when my sons reach adulthood.
participantOne:(611360-648420): and they will be some of my biggest threats, potentially. It is a raw deal for many men when they look at this concept of fatherhood. We bemoan, we mourn, we rant about the lack of fatherhood. Sometimes I think we forget that there's a lot of cause for why men struggle to be fathers. It is a difficult concept to wrap our minds around.
participantOne:(649800-685520): and it doesn't seem to come naturally. What comes naturally is things like Uranus, things like Kronos, things like Zeus. Those things make sense to most men. I think a lot of men, you hear the story of Kronos devouring his sons and daughters, and you say, yeah, that kind of makes a little bit of sense. I wouldn't want to say that out loud, but it does make a little bit of sense. Becoming a father is hard for the most part.
participantOne:(687959-716760): And that's how the ancient world oftentimes viewed fatherhood. This is one of the reasons, gentlemen, why one of the more popular sacrifices, one of the more grandiose sacrifices, one of the things that people seem to really get behind is the sacrifice of the firstborn. Because the sacrifice of the firstborn, this is the first one who was the threat to my marriage. This one was the first threat to my supremacy in society.
participantOne:(717000-753320): I have created them, and so I'm going to offer them to the gods and get them out of my house. And so you have these strands of child sacrifice and the sacrifice of the firstborn populating all around the Near East. It was a pretty common custom. And so this gentleman is why the particulars of the Jewish story and the Christian story that follows is so strange.
participantOne:(753540-788980): and would have sounded so strange to the ancient ear. Because as we know, when we say in the beginning, we don't think that everything was chaos and then maternal and then paternal. We know that everything started with a father who had a plan, and it was a plan for our goodness. Every day of creation, God the Father looks at creation and says, it is good. And then when he looks upon humanity, he says, it is very good.
participantOne:(789680-821200): And you may say, well, Joseph, why would you say God the Father, right? Like he's just being revealed as God. And so like textually, guys, in chapter 1, verse 28 of Genesis, excuse me, oh, no, 26. Then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.
participantOne:(822120-850540): So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. Well, how does that make him father? Well, in Genesis 5, we see the same language. Chapter 5 of Genesis, this is the book of the generation of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female, he created them. And he blessed them and named them man when they were created.
participantOne:(850740-875400): When Adam had lived 130 years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. The language of image and likeness here denotes sonship. To be made in the image and likeness of Adam, Seth is his son. We're made in the image and likeness of God to be sons and daughters of God.
participantOne:(877600-913880): And this is a provident God. This is a God who's not competing. This is a God who is not threatened. This is a God who gives authority and dominion to his children. At no point does God look at man and say, you know what? They are a threat to my supremacy. At no point does he look at them and say, they are hideous. At no point does he say, they are way too strong the way that Uranus looked at some of his children. At every point,
participantOne:(914100-938620): God looks at man and loves as a loving father. And this should really stir us because, so I don't know about you guys, my dad has many good characteristics. I don't think of him as necessarily the greatest of fathers. And I would go as a child and visit a friend's home. And in that home, that father...
participantOne:(939120-965760): every night would read stories to his children. That father knew what his children were interested in. That father was deeply involved in the lives of his children. And I always had this sense of, oh, that's different than my home. Whatever good is going on in my home, it seems to be lacking this element. And here's the thing.
participantOne:(966459-998880): I think one of the reasons why the Jewish people got such a bad rap, why the Israelites, everybody likes to pick on the Israelites in the Old Testament, is because everybody else feels like they're being raised by a wretched, wretched father, and they know the Israelites have a good and loving father. And that does something to the human heart. And the Christian story is that we are being asked to be adopted into the family of God, that we're being asked to be adopted...
participantOne:(999220-1025540): to be sons of the Father along with Christ. So that when he looks at us, before we do anything, at our baptism, right? And if you want to check the catechism, and I think it's in the Roman catechism as well, at our baptism, God will speak the words, has spoken the words, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.
participantOne:(1027359-1064000): that the gift of the fatherhood of God is given at our baptism. Now, we may hope that at the end of our life, we hear the words of God, well done, good and faithful servant. But we need to know that it came first because he looked at us as a father looks at his son with love. And this is why this is one of the craziest things. It's one of the wildest things. It's one of the most beautiful things. In Ephesians chapter 3, verses 14 on...
participantOne:(1064680-1096880): For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every father... Actually, for some reason this translation says family. But from whom every father in heaven and on earth is named. This notion that St. Paul gives us in Ephesians, that the false gods, the titans...
participantOne:(1097160-1130360): the the progenitors of uh greek myth they didn't understand what true fatherhood was they only knew the abuse and they didn't know the proper use they didn't know that every father gets his calling from god the father that fatherhood is not the third thing it is the first thing that fatherhood is not something that is necessarily twisted that fatherhood is not something that's necessarily vindictive or threatened or on the defensive
participantOne:(1130720-1164420): but that fatherhood can be an open and trusting, it can be a beautiful relationship. And that's one of the groundbreaking things about the gospel, is saying fatherhood is not only redeemable at its foundation, it was good. It has never not been good at its core. So in the beginning, if we place our beginning in the twisted notions of fatherhood,
participantOne:(1164820-1190120): If you, like me, look to your earthly father and say, you know, maybe, just maybe, he could have done better, because all of our fathers could have done better. And if we think that's our origin, if we think that that's our beginning, if we think that that's how we have to take our notion of fatherhood, the Christian story is saying, no, actually, I want to invite you to the very beginning.
participantOne:(1190639-1222520): I want to invite you to the point in which all is created good, all is created for flourishing, all is created for sons and daughters to actually live a beautiful life. Gentlemen, I don't know what kinds of stories of fatherhood you've grew up with. I don't know what kind of father you grew up with. I do know what kind of father that we've been given through the grace of baptism. This is one of the remarkable things is that it can be extended to anyone.
participantOne:(1223120-1254880): Everyone is invited to live in the family of God. There's no man or woman on earth who should not be invited into this. That doesn't mean that everyone is going to say yes, but it means that we actually have something remarkably good. We call it good news for a reason, because we don't know what other people are saying, how they fill in the blank in the beginning. A lot of people are filling in the blank in the beginning,
participantOne:(1255180-1298154): with a whole lot of nonsense. I didn't even talk about Zeus. Zeus was a horrible, horrible philanderer. He slept with as many women as he could. Like, goodness gracious, what an example. And we don't know how other people are answering the question, what do you think is at the beginning? But I want to invite you to revisit the fact that as baptized men, your beginning is with a loving father. Thank you.
