“Be A Dad!”

Here’s an article from Fr. Larry Richards, a great priest and awesome speaker.  Thought you’d like it.

“Be a Dad!” | Fr. Larry Richards | Adapted and excerpted from Be a Man! Becoming the Man God Created You to Be | Ignatius Insight

You are going to die!

It doesn’t matter how rich we are, or how popular we are, or how powerful we are: we are all going to “kick the bucket” one day. Isn’t that a nice thought?

What we have to do is take some time to sit and meditate about taking our last breath. What do you want your wife to say about you? What do you want your kids to say about you? Once you’ve decided, “Okay, when I am taking my last breath this is what I want”, you can start living your life with your end goal in mind. You will start living in such a way that when the day of your death happens, the people who know you will say what you want them to say.

Death is the ultimate thing that takes control out of our hands. Even if we commit suicide, we cannot control what happens after we die. Not one of us had control over our own birth and not one of us has control of what happens after we die.

I have been to a lot of deathbeds throughout my priesthood, so I know what it is going to be like when you are dying. While you are lying there, the thing that is going to be most important to you is your relationships—the people that you loved and the people that in return loved you.

Then why don’t we live every day with that in mind? Make the decision to never let your wife or your kids go to bed or walk out the door without telling them first that you love them—life is just too short! It will change your family. It will change the world.

You should underline John 15:12 in your Bible, where Jesus commands us, “Love one another as I have loved you.” This is not an option. He also said, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you” (Jn 15:9). Jesus told the people He loved that He loved them.

Why is it that men do not do that? Men are embarrassed. They are afraid. It makes them vulnerable. They think to be a man, you don’t go around telling the people you love that you love them; but Jesus told twelve men that He loved them. Then He told us to love others in the same way.

Let me give you a hint: you will never in your life regret that you told your wife and your kids and the people you love that you love them—never. You won’t be lying on your deathbed one day saying, “I can’t believe that I daily told my loved ones that I loved them. What is the matter with me?”

Now, how do you fall in love with someone? You know that you did not get to know your future wife by meeting her once and giving her forty five minutes to an hour once a week. You spent time with her. You got to know her. The same is true with our relationship with God. It might take you months—it might take you years—but you have to do it. You have to keep spending time with God until the answer to the question of whether or not you know God is unequivocally yes.

We need to know who our true Father is. There’s only one Father for everybody: God the Father! That guy you call your dad, he’s the instrument of fatherhood, but he’s not your true Father.

When we talk about our fathers—whether we had a good father, a bad father, a close and supportive father, or a distant and unsupportive father whom we did not know at all—it doesn’t matter as much because the reality is, we all have the same Father in heaven. It’s that Father Who will bring healing to us.

Husbands are called to love God primarily through their wives. Your wife is the sacrament of Christ to you. You are the sacrament of Christ to your wife. When she looks at you, she is supposed to see Jesus Christ. That is why Ephesians 5:22–24 is such a wonderful passage. It says, “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the Church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands.” Many of us remember the translation that said that wives were to be “submissive to their husbands”. The problem is that many men just stop with their wives being “submissive”. The men love that part, which is why so many women go crazy.

I make this very explicit when I am preaching at a marriage ceremony. I start with the bride and I say, “Sweetheart, you read the Bible every day, don’t you?” At first I usually get a “Yes, Father”, and then I say kiddingly, “If you lie to a priest, you know, you go to hell.” Then she will usually quickly say, “Okay, no, Father.” Then I continue, “Well, there is a verse in Ephesians that says, ‘Wives, be submissive to your husbands, as to the Lord.’ ” And then I ask, “Do you think it means what it says?” And I always get an emphatic “No, Father!” Then I literally jump up and down and scream, “Yes, it means what it says!” When I say this, all the feminists in the crowd become very upset and say things like, “This is another reason I hate the Catholic Church.” And the bride thinks, “Why did we ever get this priest to marry us?” I love this!

Then, as anyone who knows me knows, I am an equal opportunity offender, so I turn to the groom, who usually likes all of this. Now it is time for the other shoe to fall. I then ask the groom, “You read the Bible every day, right?” He always responds, “No, Father.” Then I ask, “Well, do you know what it says in Ephesians after ‘Wives, be submissive to your husbands’?” The groom always shakes his head and says, “No.” Then I continue, “It says, ‘Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her.’ ” Then I ask, “Do you know what that means?” I then continue kiddingly, “Your life is over!” Then I tell them that every day they need to be more concerned about each other than they are about themselves! That is what marriage is about!

So you need to start to do at least one unselfish act for your wife every day. Surprise her. When was the last time you treated her the same way you did when you were still trying to get her to marry you?

Next, let us focus on your children, which I think is easier because they are a part of you. Do we allow our children to be themselves? Some people think that the best father you can be is a strong disciplinarian. Absolutely, I agree. But just as much as you discipline your children, you must also build them up.

Sometimes we are just harsh and we think this is what God wants, but that isn’t the way God is. God loves us. He gives away His life for us. And then He always tells us He loves us. Correct?

One of the roles that men have, given to them by God (see Gen 3:16; 1 Cor 11:3; Eph 5:23), is to be the spiritual leaders of their families. Now this is where I have called men “spiritual wimps” for many years. Many men have let their wives be the spiritual leaders of their families, but this is not the way God created it to be. Now this does not mean that you are the master of your wife and family; it means, like Jesus Christ, you are the servant leader of your family.

First off, this means that you lead by example. You must be a man of prayer. For it is only as a son who listens to his heavenly Father that you can bring the will of the Father to your family. You cannot be a good and true leader unless you are a true and good follower. You must daily spend committed time in prayer with God, then lead your family in prayer. Do you have daily committed time with your family in prayer? And no, grace before meals is not enough!

You need to be the spiritual leader by being a man of sacrifice. You exist to give your life away for others, like Jesus did. That means you give your life for your family first and foremost.

My good friend Danny Abramowicz loves to tell men at men’s conferences: “Men, your kids will always love their mother, but they want to become just like you!” If we are not holy ourselves, then our families will not be holy. It is that simple. God is going to speak to men, women, and children, but He is speaking especially to men to help us be His very image.

You are the sacrament of Fatherhood to your children just like St. Joseph was the sacrament of Fatherhood to Jesus. Just as God used St. Joseph to form Jesus Christ in His humanity, so too does He want to use you to form your children. So I would encourage you before you read any further to stop and ask St. Joseph for his intercession for you so you can grow in holiness.

The Lord God of the universe is calling all of us to be great men, men that are examples of Him and who use Him as our example. We are called to become another Christ in this world. Our goal is to bring others to Him.

Do it and you will live forever.

Porn Gone Mobile

It may not be news to some of you, but porn is everywhere.  When I first got my Droid phone, I searched through lists and lists of free apps to add to my phone just as most people who have app-enabled phones do.  Obviously, we want to utilize the machine for what it can do, right?  In those lists, I came across apps that were quite scandalous… these apps served up porn (of varying degrees).  It’s porn gone mobile… as if porn wasn’t easy enough to access on the web, the porn industry had to add it to web-enabled phones as well.

This was all brought to mind today when I saw a thread about Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, and his comments to a hack-job blogger on the topic of “the ‘freedom’ that iPad offers.”  Currently, to the best of my knowledge, there are no apps for the iPad that support pornography.  It’s hard to say that porn isn’t accessible on the iPad because porn is still accessible via the web browser on iPad, but not directly via any apps.  Some porn companies are frustrated with the inability to have an app for their porn site(s).  What it comes down to for the porn companies is the almighty dollar.  Totally disgusting.

Here’s the whole point… and I’ve said this before, but will repeat it as many times as is necessary.  PORN HUNTS FOR US!  It’s not like the ‘ol days’ when you had to be ballsy enough to walk into an ‘adult store’ and purchase a magazine or VHS.  Now, porn is accessible in places we can’t even imagine.  Porn is everywhere and it doesn’t wait for us to find it, it comes after us and doesn’t stop.

Parents – don’t assume your kids aren’t looking at, watching, using, distributing, streaming or buying porn.  Get into their media, including their mobile media… basically anything that has access to the web or a signal, and put a stop to it.  It will destroy their lives!

Many people wonder (and debate heavily) why porn is so bad.  I’ll leave that for next post.  Until then, fight the giant.

If you are addicted to pornography, please click HERE to start getting help TODAY.

TrueMan up!

Scandal, Scandal Everywhere

Does anyone else feel like Satan is really attacking the Church hard the past few weeks?  And I don’t just mean his normal tactics; I’m talking huge attacks.  He’s shaking things up close to the foundation and doing major damage in the hearts and minds of many wayward Catholics around the world.  It seems like everywhere I look, every article that gets sent to me and every post about the Church on Facebook… it’s all slander, and scandal.  In the past day, I read about 12 Catholic priests in South America coming out in favor of ‘gay rights’, about a former Lutheran pastor (married, with 6 children) becoming a Catholic priest and about the controversial statements made by Cardinal Schonborn of Vienna, Austria.  These stories don’t shake my faith, but they spark doubt and confusion in the minds of many.

For those who don’t believe in Satan (the Prince of Lies), he exists.  You don’t have to believe in him in order for him to exist.  Actually, the more you don’t believe in him, the less you acknowledge his presence, the more work he can do in your life.  He’s attacking the Church now, I believe, because people’s faith is weak and moral relativism is at an all-time high.  Being aware of where you stand is essential in fighting Satan.

What are we to do about these attacks?  How can one man, a guy like me, do anything to ‘right wrongs’ in the Church?  How can I make a large enough impact to justify doing even one small thing?  The answer starts at home.  You MUST be living as an authentic disciple of Christ.  If you are married, you must be encouraging your wife to do the same.  If you have children, you must raise them in the faith.  This is not a faith of ‘pick-and-choose’… your faith must be solid and unwaivering.  Our faith isn’t individual to us.  It is universal, to the entire Church.  That prevents us from thinking we can make decisions of faith and morals on our own.  If you’re living the faith at home, it translates into living it in the workplace, during leisure time and on vacation (at least it should.)  If we live authentic lives for Christ, others will see and will want the joy that we have.  This may seem too simplistic for some, but the truth of the matter is that arguing with people about scandals in the Church rarely allows for conversion, and only distances their desire for God.

With all of the scandals hitting the news lately, I encourage all of us to pray heartily for the Church.  It is times such as these that we must remain faithful and firm in our resolution to defend against evil.

TrueMan up!

Tuesdays with Daddy – Father’s Edition

To all the men who are fathers… today’s “Tuesdays with Daddy” is for you.  Unfortunately, my opportunity to be home with my girls on Tuesdays will be coming to an end in about a month.  I thought it would be a good idea to put forth a challenge to all the dads out there, to keep you thinking, to keep you purposeful in your parenting.  Read over these questions and be honest with yourself about the answers.  If something’s not up to par, make a change today.  I believe that we are all on a journey towards being the best father that we can be.  The journey requires us to always be moving forward, always toward being better.

• Do you tell your children, not just everyday, but every chance you have, that you love them?
• Do your actions match up with your words?
• Do you love your wife?
• Does your love (action!) match up with your “I love yous”?
• Do your children see you loving your wife?
• Do your children have a healthy and realistic understanding of love, or is it what they see on television, in movies and online?
• Do you prioritize your life well?  Or do you give one (or more) part more attention and neglect the other things you ought to be doing?
• Are you addicted to anything?  Porn?  Alcohol?  ESPN?  Work? etc.
• Are you working to overcome your addiction?  (Ask me if you need resources… Dave@TrueManhood.com)
• Do you strive to grow in virtue?
• Are you faithful to a daily prayer life?  To a Sacramental life?
• Do your children know that you pray?
• Do you pray with your children everyday?
• Are you actively involved in the spiritual formation of your children daily?
• Do you pass on responsibilities and place them on your wife and/or childcare provider?
• Do you rejoice in your children?
• What else do you need to work on?

Man up!

“Our lives change when our habits change.”  – Matthew Kelly

Tuesdays with Daddy – Selfishness Impedes Service

My daughter has been sick for several days.  Because she is a toddler, it is difficult to really pinpoint what’s happening with her, what hurts and how to make her better.  I’ve been at a loss for exactly what to do, and although we’re trying, she doesn’t seem to be getting better.  At least not as fast I my wife and I would hope.  As I’ve been observing her and contemplating solutions to this problem, I realized something today… selfishness impedes service.  What do I mean?

When you’re in charge of someone else, and their entire well-being stems from your actions, it’s plain to see that they not only rely on you to make good decisions, but to be at their service.  This isn’t to say that I wait hand-and-foot on my children, but it means that my daughters, especially when ill, need me to be selfless in regards to them.  And, I want to be a servant-leader for my family and for the world, which requires me to continually learn how to better serve them.  I look at my life and realize (quite often) how selfish I can be.  I like what I like, the way I like it, when I like it, how I like it.  This gets in the way of my ability to truly serve my family.

Where did my selfish tendencies come from?  Besides my fallen human nature, my tendency toward selfishness stems from my past pornography use.  It made everything I do, even serving my sickly little girl, about me.  Because of this revelation, I realized that the only way to do that is to look to the cross.  I must unite my failures in life to the struggle Christ experienced on the cross so that I am purified of my tendency toward comfort, self-pleasure and ease.  My little girl needs me to be one hundred percent committed to taking care of her and if I don’t watch it, I’ll put myself before her, falling into old patterns and losing sight of the cross.  If this happens, my selfishness has won and drastically impedes my ability to serve.

I urge everyone to take a step back, especially during Holy Week, to evaluate the areas in your life (vicious behavior) that require change.  Figure out how to change those things and continue to work on them until you possess the virtue that overcomes that vice.

Man up!

A Man, His Wife, a Snowmobile and Wide-open Spaces

I’m a lucky man.  I had the opportunity to get away this weekend with my wife.  We got away for a half day on Friday, stayed overnight and had a whole day together on Saturday.  With children, full-time jobs, a full-time ministry and life, we rarely get a full weekend together.  A big thanks goes out to my brother, a friend of ours and to my in-laws for their help in watching the kids while we were gone.

The overnight date was perfect, just what we needed.  A time with my best friend, a time of relaxation and rejuvenation, a time for some excitement and adventure.  On Friday, we traveled to a small mountain town about 2.5 hrs away.  When we arrived in town, the shop was ready for us.  We signed in, grabbed a helmet for each of us, then traveled about 3 miles outside of town to start our back country snowmobile trip.  We jumped on a touring sled and hit the trail.  We couldn’t have asked for a better day – the sky was blue, the sun was out, the snow was pristine.  It’s days like that when you really enjoy God’s creation… it was as if that day, God had created it all for us specifically.  We toured around for a few hours, enjoying the scenery, the cool wind and each other’s company.  The trip was incredible.

That night, we relaxed in a meager hotel room, enjoying each other’s company, the fact that we didn’t have to put any children to bed and the realization that there was no work in sight!  The next morning, we got up early to hit the slopes, enjoying a day of skiing at a favorite ski resort.  Again, God blessed us with an incredible day of blue skies, warm temps and time together.

What’s my point in telling you all about my wonderful overnight weekend getaway?  My point is simple: take time to rejuvenate yourself.  Find something – it doesn’t have to be snowmobiling and skiing – but find something that gives you life and make time for it in your life.  As a man who is a glutton for a busy life, I can attest to the facts of life and what a busy, stress-filled life can do to a man.  If you don’t have an outlet for your stress, your worries and your cares, they’ll catch up with you.  If you don’t have a source of energy to fill you up, you’ll continually give of yourself until you run dry.  For me, it was 1. time with my wife, alone without our children 2. time away from my computer, work and projects and 3. an opportunity to do an activity (2, in this case) that was life-giving!  After this weekend, I’m ready to tackle my life and everything that life throws my way.

Whatever it is that you need in your life, be it a stress-reliever, a life-giving “fill up” or an outlet of any kind, make special time to make it happen.  It will do you, and the others you are entrusted with, a great deal of good.

Man up!

I Must Do These Things!

I’ve been dropping the ball in an area of my life… consistently and repeatedly.  I’ve been neglecting the one thing that should be my number one priority.  I recently wrote an article all about priorities, yet I wasn’t really heeding my own advice.  I didn’t realize what I was doing, or how my actions and lack of thoughtfulness were really affecting the situation.  What it all really comes down to is that I’m selfish.  I acknowledge this shortcoming and desire to work on it.  I know that if  I don’t work on being selfless, as opposed to selfish, I will ruin the things that are most important to me.  Words, as in most situations, mean nothing when unsubstantiated by actions.  My actions have been speaking volumes, and I am not proud of what they have been saying.

I’m speaking about my wife.  She should be my top priority, but I take her for granted.  She should be my motivation, but I only give her whatever time is left over.  She should be who I concentrate on when I’m making plans, but instead I think only of myself.  I could continue on with a hundred more examples of what I should be doing, but that would just be talking.  I must show my wife, consistently and repeatedly, that what I profess with my mouth is also, and most importantly, what I DO.  My wife deserves better and I intend to make amends, right the ship and continue on.  It’s never easy to admit that I am struggling with something, and quite difficult not to become defensive about what I’ve done… but I’m striving for TrueManhood and I MUST do these things!  I must continue on, but I must strive to be like Christ.  I’m far from Him and unworthy of being followed sometimes, yet there’s one person who I can’t lead astray, and that’s my wife.

I write all of this to show that we’re all on a journey and that each of us must continually strive to grow in TrueManhood and ultimately, in holiness.  Never give up.  Continue to strive for perfection, as our Heavenly Father is perfect.

Man up!

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