Father's Day: Invites us to remember Dad

	Guest Commentary  Fr. Don Lange

Like Mother's Day, Father's Day was inspired by a woman. Her name was Mrs. John (Sonora) Dodd. She conceived the idea while listening to a sermon about mothers on Mother's Day in 1909.

Mrs. Dodd wanted a Father's Day to honor her father who heroically raised six children virtually by himself after his wife died. By promoting Father's Day, Mrs. Dodd wanted her father and other responsible fathers to know that their sacrifices are appreciated.

Thanks to the respect that Mrs. Dodd had for her father, on Father's Day, Sunday, June 17, this year, we can gratefully recall ways that our father, whether alive or dead, left his indelible mark on our memory. In so doing, we honor some of the most needed persons on earth. They are good, responsible fathers.

It inspires me to see women such as Mrs. Dodd who respect their fathers. Fathers are important because children hunger for masculine role models whom they can trust and admire. A good responsible father is important to young boys as a male role model. He can also help to give his son or daughter a sense of self worth and moral direction.

Every day for fathers

My three sisters who loved Dad as much as me often made every day a Father's Day! Their love for him showed me how important a good dad is to young girls. A woman once told me that the way a little girl relates to her father may determine the way she relates to other men. She added that a father is often the most important man in a little girl's life.

One of the most important gifts a father can give to his children is to love their mother. Obviously it is also important for the mom to love her children's dad. Neither should tolerate disobedience or disrespect on the part of their children. In our confused society children need this living example of a true mother and father. The father together with his wife co-operate with God in bringing life into the world. There is no greater power than that!

Spiritual father

It is easy to be a physical father, but the greater challenge is to be a spiritual father. This is what really counts. One of the most difficult gifts to give in today's "hurry up" world is the gift of quality time. My dad shared large quantities of quality time. Together we hunted, fished, watched ball games, and drank pop at the local tavern. I spent hours watching him and others work, share windy stories, and tell jokes. These are priceless memories of a father's love. I do not think my dad ever told me that he loved me. He did not have to because he showed love in these and other ways.

I recall the times when Dad pointed out to me what I did wrong in a very quiet way. And I listened and I think I changed. I think educators call these "teachable moments."

Finally my dad showed me his love through a unique sense of humor which he expressed until the day that he died. I visited him the day before he unexpectedly died in the hospital. Since it was my birthday, as I left I kidded him that he would probably outlive me. He shook his head and laughed.

Thanking God

His death left an empty spot in my heart that I partially fill with memories of the way we were. Though Dad still lives in my heart on earth. I believe that he is with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, enjoying the fullness of eternity with Mary, the saints, and others.

Thanks to Mrs. Dodd and others we have a graced opportunity to celebrate and to thank God for the gift of our father whose caring loving presence often mirrors or mirrored the love of our Heavenly Father. May we continue to support the family which the Catechism of the Catholic Church calls the domestic church and the original cell of family life. May we continue to honor our father not only on Father's Day, but everyday!

Fr. Don Lange is a pastor emeritus in the Diocese of Madison.

Sex: Do Americans really think about its deeper meaning?

		Making Sense  Out of Bioethics  Fr. Tad  Pacholczyk

Do Americans think enough about sex? Some would argue that it seems to be the only thing on people's minds in troubled times like these where so much attention is lavished on celebrity couplings, Viagra, and breast augmentation.

Yet there is an important difference between sex on the brain and sex as an object of thought, and we face a rather urgent cultural need to reflect more deeply on the inner order and significance of human sexual activity. The failure to think carefully about the deeper meaning of sex, I believe, stands at the root of several modern-day bioethical problems like in vitro fertilization (IVF) and contraception.

Surrender to self

Sex has a delicate structure of its own. At the heart of the marital act, we can identify a kind of surrender. The inner language of sexuality involves a surrender of our self and our self-will.

Prior to the marital act, one already sees how this self-surrender begins to come into play: does my spouse feel up to it tonight? If we become pregnant, will I support her in the morning sickness that may ensue?

Am I willing to surrender my desire for intimacy now, if we agree that we ought to wait? Am I ready to surrender myself to the various demands that will come with raising children well and responsibly? Am I open to my spouse's concerns tonight, even more than my own?

Even within the marital act itself, we discover this same aspect of self-surrender. St. Augustine referred to the intensity of sexual intimacy, noting that "when it reaches its climax, there is an almost total extinction of mental alertness; the intellectual senses, as it were, are overwhelmed."

The point of climax, then, also involves a language of letting go of oneself, so that we enter a new and ecstatic space where we are no longer in command, where our own self-will no longer prevails.

Gift of a child

This aspect of surrendering ourselves, looking to the other, and relinquishing control is a basic dynamism at the heart of human sexuality. Whenever a new human life is conceived at the center of this surrender, it suddenly appears as a "third," and a co-equal with its parents.

The child seems to appear out of nothing, precisely when the parents find they can lay claim to nothing of their own, when their surrender has become complete.

In their mutual surrender, the child can come as an equal, entering the world not as a product or a project, but as a gift awaiting discovery and unpacking.

In their abandonment to each other, the husband and wife initially lack even the knowledge about whether they have become pregnant; they remain unsure for a while about whether the gift has come or not, and they wait in hope. Clearly, they are not in control of the whole process.

In the depths of their one-flesh union, in their "union of self-annihilation," they discover this transcendent and mysterious possibility of engendering/receiving a "third." That "third" comes as an equal to the parents in part because the parents cannot selfishly lay claim to the new life as if it were an entitlement, possession, or right.

With the ultimate origin of that new life out of their control, they cannot subjugate it as "unequal" or "lesser" than themselves, because of the inherent equality of origins between themselves as human beings and their children as human beings. The engendering of new life, in an important sense, always stands just outside their full control.

The inner structure of human sexuality thus includes this central and discernible meaning: that the root origin of new human life is meant to ultimately lie beyond our own direct determination, being instead the fruit of a collaborative surrender and union with our spouse and with God.

Natural order upset

Once we begin to see this beautiful inner order of human sexuality, we can also begin to appreciate how both contraception and IVF manage to upset the apple cart of sexual relations in married life.

When a married couple uses contraception, they say with their bodies that they do not, in fact, surrender to each other. They hold back a deep and critical aspect of themselves, namely, their own fruitfulness and fertility. They refuse to share that part of themselves with each other and with God.

Because sex is about total surrender, contraception strikes at the heart of human sexuality by turning it into a partial and warped exchange, where one spouse may use the other to gain certain desired satisfactions. This can amount more to manipulation and domination, perhaps even a form of mutual masturbation, rather than loving surrender.

The entire dimension of loss-of-self in mutual surrender, opening up a self-less space for the arrival of a "third," is stripped away by contraception. Any child who might happen to be conceived (in spite of contraceptive efforts) arrives not as a welcome "third" equal to the parents, but as an unequal, less-than-desired encumbrance. The "third" is perceived as a threat to my desires and plans. I must remain in command, in charge, rather than living in the fruitful mystery of total surrender in marriage.

The appearance of this "third" who is outside my game plan may lead to the next step - abortion - reflecting a radical closure of the marriage to any kind of surrender or acceptance, and a firm rejection of any kind of equality between parent and child.

So while there should be real surrender in this setting, with contraception there is instead a real form of domination over the origins of another. The apple cart goes topsy-turvy as contraception enters a marriage.

Manufactured child

The situation is equally troubling with IVF. At the heart of IVF, we again encounter not only manipulation but also a new form of domination. Instead of the child appearing as an equal in the midst of true self-abandonment following sexual intimacy, the child is now highly unequal to the parent, a pawn to be played with in the endgame of satisfying parental wants.

The child is radically unequal to his parents because he is manufactured in laboratory glassware, treated as a product, manhandled, prodded, possibly even frozen or discarded so as to assure that a desired outcome is forthcoming for those who dominate over him and his origins.

Instead of surrender, the origin of human life is turned into a laboratory effort that is subject to our own direct determination and manipulation.

The arrival of a "third" is not a gift that appears in the midst of our one-flesh surrender, but a scheme to be realized by making use of all our wiles and resources. Our own willfulness, rather than our mutual surrender, is the central dynamic in IVF, much as it is in contraception.

Benedict XVI in his first encyclical letter speaks of "That love between man and woman which is neither planned nor willed, but somehow imposes itself upon human beings . . . " This mysterious love is particularly reflected in the marital embrace of husband and wife, calling forth their mutual self-abandonment and total surrender, and throwing open a receptive space in their marriage to new life and new love.

Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk earned his doctorate in neuroscience from Yale and did post-doctoral work at Harvard. He is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Mass., and serves as the director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, Pa.