What is a father? That's the question that was asked at the first meeting of That Man is You at our parish this weekend. Each of us can answer that question based on our own experience of our father. Then they showed us an example of a father: Dick Hoyt and his son, Rick.
After the video, there were some tears in our eyes. We watched a father who was told by a doctor that his newborn son had cerebral palsy and that he would spend the rest of his life in an institution. The doctor said to him that he should forget that Rick was ever born; he should send Rick to a state-run institution for the handicapped. He and his wife were horrified by the suggestion and said, "No way." The doctors kept saying that Rick would be nothing more than a vegetable. Dick and his wife couldn't imagine abandoning Rick and living a life without him, as if he had never existed. They said to themselves, no matter what was wrong with him, Rick was going to remain at home. They cried their entire way from the doctor's office. Back at home, they began to think about what it would cost to provide care for their son at home. They crunched some numbers, and realized that it wasn't going to be easy. Beginning that day, Dick and his wife began to plan the rest of their lives around Rick.
From the question "What is a father?" we can go further. "Who is Heavenly Father?" The reason we come to mass is to meet and worship Heavenly Father. That's the only essential reason. We come to meet Heavenly Father who wants to shower upon us His love. But sometimes we are blind to this, aren't we? I was told in another parish that a group of parents approached their parish priest for a dispensation from Sunday mass. The priest asked why, and the parents said that their children's soccer league made it a mandatory attendance to Sunday morning practice in order to be part of the league. We know we have made something our "false god" when we cannot say with honesty that we kept the First Commandment ""I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God..." The same thing can be said for the Third Commandment, ""Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter..."
I told you that when Rick was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, his mom and dad decided, out of love, to make great sacrifices in order to plan the rest of their lives around their son. If you think about it, the reason why Heavenly Father sent his only Son Jesus into this world was because He wanted to plan the rest of His life around us. Therefore, He made the great sacrifice to allow His only Son to be sacrificed for us. And at Sunday mass we receive that outpouring of His love. If we realize that, we are beginning to see the Truth. I am guilty as anyone in this: how many of us skip Sunday mass because we were busy shopping, cutting grass at our home, watching football, taking kids to soccer game, or simply saying I'm too tired? Are these the things that keep us from knowing Our Lord Jesus? Are these the things that keep us from supporting church and community activities? In order to destroy the "false gods" in our lives, we first need to realize that we do not belong to us; Heavenly Father purchased us at a great price, so we belong to Him. We need to ask Our Father what keeps us from loving and following Him.
Going back to the video, what did we see in that video that made all of us, men, cry? We saw a father and his son in Ironman Triathlon. In the first part of competition, Rick (now 48 yrs old) was placed in a rubber boat and his dad (70 yrs old) swam, pulling Rick in the boat. In the second leg of the competition, Dick picked up his son lying in the boat and placed him in a specially fitted bike, and biked 112 miles. The third leg of the competition, Dick placed his son in a special wheel chair and pushed him, running the next 26 miles. Rick told his dad once, "Dad, when we were running, It felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!'' His dad said, "When we first started running, I was getting calls and letters from people with disabilities that were very upset with me and they said I was just out there looking for glory and dragging my disabled son to all these races. They didn't know that it was him dragging his old man to these races.” If an earthly father goes this far for his son, think about how far Heavenly Father sacrifices for us.
