Let’s celebrate Fathers’ Day

A quick glance in shops at the moment reveals shelves stuffed full of men’s gifts and cards, which must mean only one thing: it’s Father’s Day again. Unlike Mothering Sunday, Father’s Day does not have its origins in a church festival: is it just an excuse for card shops to make money or should the church take it seriously?

Fathers are never far from the headlines, from controversies around teenage fathers to reports on how good fathers have such a positive influence on the development of their children. All this coverage shows that we instinctively recognise the importance of fathers to us individually and to society as a whole. So we shouldn’t be surprised that this emphasis on, and honouring of, good fatherhood is a reflection of the way in which God deals with the human race.

I have always believed in my head that God loves me unconditionally but it was only when I became a father myself that I began to understand it with my heart. From the moment when I first set eyes on my first child, now aged ten, my love for her was so immediate and strong that I would have done anything to protect her - and still would. And that set me wondering about the love of God: if I, with all my faults, could love like that, then maybe I could understand in a new way how it is possible for God to love me like this.

I have never known a love quite like the love of being a father and I rejoice in the great gift of fatherhood. I rejoice in it because of my children, to whom I am devoted. But I also rejoice in it because it helps me to understand more profoundly how God loves me, and how nothing can separate me from that love. When Jesus told the story of the prodigal son, in which a father joyfully welcomes home a son who had squandered all that his father gave him, it was to reveal the way in which God (whom Jesus tells us to call our Father) wants to relate to us. It’s a tragedy when we hear of, or experience for ourselves, fathers that fall a long way short of this ideal, but it’s also a tragedy if we allow these experiences to colour our views of fatherhood as a whole. If Jesus honoured fatherhood in this way, why shouldn’t we?

Let’s celebrate Father’s day in our churches, honouring those fathers who have shown us something of God’s love, praying for fathers to be given strength in their crucial role and remembering that God, who is our Father in heaven, loves us more than we can grasp.

Rt Rev John Inge, Bishop of Worcester