I’ve been sitting with something small this week, and it won’t let me go. Everything I think I know about being a father, I didn’t invent. I’m borrowing it.

Saint John Paul II wrote that every act of fatherhood on earth finds its model in the fatherhood of God, that his is the original and mine is only ever a copy of it. Reading that felt like relief and a little exposure at the same time. Relief, because I don’t have to manufacture patience or steadiness out of nothing. Exposure, because when I’m short with my kids or too tired to really listen, I’m not failing some standard I made up. I’m falling short of the one I’m supposed to be copying.

So here’s what I’m going to try today. Before the next moment that asks something fatherly of me, a correction, a decision, just actually being present, I’m going to stop for one breath and pray the first line of the prayer Jesus gave us. Not the whole thing, just, Our Father, who art in heaven. Long enough to remember whose fatherhood I’m standing in before I act like I invented my own.

It’s such a small thing to try. But I think that might be the whole point. I don’t need a new technique for being a better dad today. I need to keep going back to the original.

Today’s Bible Study

Paul doesn’t just say God is like a father. Writing to the Ephesians, he says he bows his knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. Every family gets its name from his first. Which means when I call myself my kids’ dad, I’m using a title that started somewhere else and was only ever lent to me. Worth remembering that the word came from him before it ever came to me.

Recommended Reading

If you’re looking for somewhere to start this month, I’ve been turning to St. Joseph more this week. He’s listed right on the Resources page here as the patron of fathers. A man who doesn’t get a single recorded word in Scripture and still said yes to everything God asked of him. That’s about as good a model of fatherhood as I can think of.