The Bravest Thing a Father Does

Brother,

Today the world will call you a good father if you grilled something, fixed something, and tolerated a tie you will never wear.

The Gospel this morning asks for something harder.

The word He says three times

Jesus is sending the Twelve out into a world that will hate them, and inside of nine verses He tells them the same thing three times: "Do not be afraid." — "Fear no one." — "Do not be afraid" (Matthew 10:26–31). He is not talking them out of nerves. He is talking them out of silence.

Then comes the hinge of the whole passage, and it should land on a father like a hand on the back of the neck:

"Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will also acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father" (Matthew 10:32–33).

Acknowledge. Out loud. In front of people.

The fear that actually gets us

It is not the dramatic fear. Most of us will never be asked to die for the Faith at knifepoint. The fear that gets Catholic men is small and daily and quiet: the fear of being the only one who bows his head to pray over food at the table full of in-laws. The fear of the look your teenager gives you when you say we're going to Confession Saturday. The fear of being the man at work everyone privately files under a little much because there's a crucifix on his desk.

The prophet Jeremiah knew that fear by name. In this morning's first reading he hears the whispering — "Terror on every side!" — every one of his friends watching for him to stumble (Jeremiah 20:10). And he says he tried to stay quiet, he tried to not say the Name — "but then it becomes like fire burning in my heart… I cannot endure it" (Jeremiah 20:9). The man could not hold it in.

That is the father God is asking for. Not the loudest man in the room. The one who will not be made silent in his own house.

What your children will remember

Here is the part no one prints on a Father's Day card. Your children will not remember whether you believed. Belief is invisible. They will remember whether you were ashamed of it.

They will remember if Dad knelt. If Dad said the name of Jesus Christ in his own voice, in daylight, where they could hear it — or only mumbled it in the dark and let the world set the volume. A father who acknowledges Christ in front of his kids has done more catechesis in one unashamed moment than a hundred programs. And the promise attached to it is staggering: the heavenly Father acknowledges, before all of heaven, the earthly father who would not deny His Son.

On the one day a year the world hands you the name father, the Gospel reminds you Whose Name you carry it under.

This week

One act. Name Him out loud, on purpose, in one place you've been keeping quiet. Say grace — aloud, unhurried — at the restaurant. Put the crucifix back on the wall you took it down from. Tell your kid, in plain words, here is what I believe and here is why.

Then do not let it be a one-day courage. Do one unashamed thing every day this week. The Sanctum is built on reps — and so is a father a child can't forget.

Altar. Arms. Allegiance.

— The Sanctum Dispatch

P.S. Reply and tell me one line: where is the one place you've been afraid to name Him — and what are you going to do about it this week? I read every reply.

Coming Tuesday on the channel

St. John the Baptist — The Last of the Prophets. The man who would not be made silent — who named sin to a king's face and lost his head rather than soften it. The patron of every man who refuses to whisper the truth. Tuesday, 7:00 AM ET. Subscribe so it lands in your feed: https://www.youtube.com/@1765Sanctum

One last thing this week.

The daily disciplines of a man who won't fold — examen, Mass, Rosary, monthly Confession, the Friday fast, hidden almsgiving, spiritual reading — are the backbone of the Catholic Man's Rule of Life: 7-Day Field Manual. It's free.

Get the Field Manual — free

For God.  For country.  For the fight.

In Christ and Our Lady,
Will
Founder, 1765 Sanctum Co.