Honor Your Father and Your Mother

A Shepherd's Voice (Transcript - Episode 4)

Let us begin in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,

World without end. Amen.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Thank you for joining me for another episode of “A Shepherd’s Voice.” I am glad to be able to share with you what is so important to me and to all of us – the Truth of God that He has revealed to us, specifically beginning, as you know, with the Commandments.

We are on the Fourth Commandment today, and possibly there is not one more significant, except certainly the first three that we have covered about proper and due worship of God and recognizing who God is in our lives, but this commandment is very important for how we live in human relationships, how we honor God by the way we live with each other.

The Fourth Commandment as we know is – “Honor your father and mother” – very brief – from Exodus and Deuteronomy (Exodus 20:12, Deuteronomy 5:16), but very profound. This Fourth Commandment really gets at the heart of what I believe, as Our Lady of Fatima said and as Pope St. John Paul II has said – that the family is so important, and the fracturing of the family is at the root of the problems we see today. And I believe that is true as I have reflected on this Fourth Commandment – “Honor your father and your mother.”

Let us first focus on just those words – “Honor your father and mother.” It echoes what we have recently heard in this nation, sort of an astounding clarification but one sadly that is necessary – God has made us male and female from conception. We are either a male person or a female person, and I applaud the government administration that is proclaiming that very basic truth that comes from revelation. Mother and father are those males and females that collaborate with God in what we call procreation to bring us into the world. That is God’s plan, and as a commandment, it reminds us how critical it is and how it must be honored, and I think in many ways we can look at the troubles of our world today through the lens of lack of honor of father and mother. In so many different ways, it is like a fount of problems that flow from not living up to that calling – to honor father and mother.

I specifically focus on that word “honor.” Certainly, there is obedience, there is respect, but honor is an exalted word that we need to pay attention to. Honor your father and your mother really does take us back to the worship and honor of God that the First Commandment speaks of – to remind us who God is and who we are. And our mother and our father, failed human beings like we all are – they are sinful – but we honor them because of the role they have played in helping bring us into existence through procreation. And it is God’s plan, and when we interfere with it, and our world interferes with it in tragic ways, then we interfere with this plan of God – to honor your father and your mother. And it is not just to honor these two individuals, this man and this woman, with their blessings and their failings, but to honor the reality that it takes a father and a mother, a male and a female, through procreation, to bring another human being. And what a wondrous gift that is.

We need to all be aware of the beauty of bringing children into the world. That is what marriage is about, and certainly, to bring those two, mother and father, together and nurture them because they are doing God’s will, and they are nurturing new life. And this is God’s plan for human civilization, for human society, and it is deeply fractured in our time. There is probably, as far as just the human community living together, there probably is not anything more important than to remember – and it is a commandment – to honor our father and our mother, to respect and to love, to have gratitude for all they give us, and to care for them All of those different categories – I could spend much more than this brief half hour with you to discuss – the importance of obedience, the importance of respect and love, the importance of gratitude and care for parents, in old age especially, or any time when they especially need our care. There are times, and there are stories that I have heard, and probably most of us have, where younger children find themselves in a role of caring for their parents because of an accident or because of some difficult circumstance they are in. But it is something we all need to take very seriously, and to rejoice in what honoring your mother and your faither really means. It is honoring God’s plan for each of us and being aware how critical it is that we respect family – that is not directly a commandment – but it is embedded in this.

How do we honor our father and our mother? And how do we worship God if we allow families to be redefined according to our whim, and to be fractured in ways that are just devastating for everyone involved, especially for the children? I think that part of what we have to recognize is honoring, in a somewhat ironic way, the commandment of honoring father and mother, is critically important for the children. The real proper loving discipline of children is very lacking in our world. And I have even been with good Catholic families, doing their best – and as we all know it is a delicate thing, because I am sort of like the visiting uncle - and I am blessed to visit a lot of families, and I feel that kind of closeness to families – but I have found myself at times saying to a child, “Don’t talk back to your mother,” “Don’t speak disrespectfully to your father,” and thankfully the parents have received it well, and have thanked me for sort of in some way maybe overstepping my bounds. But we need to be willing to do that – because sometimes parents are overwhelmed, and they forget to call for, to really demand the respect of their children – not because they want to be respected so much – but because It is so absolutely necessary for their children to learn to respect their parents, to honor them, to treasure all that they have offered them.

The fracturing of families, as I have already said this morning, is probably the primary topic that we need to pray about, that we need to discuss with our families, and we need to encourage other families. Thankfully, I see a lot of strong families that are living the faith in all kind of different categories you could say of kinds of families – some very pious and very solemn but joyful, and others a little more still caught up in the more modern casual world, but still doing their very best to nurture the lives of their children, and that is definitely embedded in a significant aspect, at the heart of this commandment, to honor your father and your mother – the proper raising of children. And so this commandment is one that I think we all have to really pay attention to in significant ways.

We can look also at the duties of parents. Parents have a lot of responsibilities. Parents have a sacred duty to raise their children in the faith, ensuring they know and love God. Just pause for a moment to think about that. Too many times in our modern world with this sort of so-called openness which is really not authentic at all, and tolerance – it’s like – oh we will let Johnny or Janie decide how they want to approach religion or how they want to approach God. That is not parenting. Certainly God is the One who has given us free will, and as the child grows into an adult, they will be very aware of their own free will, and they are then required, once they are adults, to make their own free will choices – to say yes to God. But it is very important, the sacred duty of parents.

So as St. Paul says it so well in his writings where he speaks of the duty of husbands, the duty of wives, and the duty of children – it is a mutual responsibility that we all have to take very seriously. So the parents have a sacred duty to raise their children in the faith, ensuring they know and love God. They should teach virtues, discipline with love, and provide a good example. That is from the Catechism, paragraphs 2221-2231, ten paragraphs talking about the importance of the duties of parents. Parents should be a reflection of God’s own love, firm and yet merciful.

Certainly, none of our parents are perfect. I was blessed with good people as my parents. Certainly through the years I had my conflicts somewhat in the teenage years, but then thankfully I felt very blessed as a young man preparing for the priesthood to have, by the grace of God (it really was not something that I accomplished), but it set a good example for me, and by God’s grace, I came to a deep and profound respect for my parents, knowing their failings, and sometimes seeing disagreements. But I think again, too often, with parent and child, whatever the age of the child, we get caught up in differences of opinion. Parents are called to raise their children in the truth, not in their opinion, but in the truth. A parent may have their own private opinions about some things that are somewhat in conflict with what the Church teaches, or with what God has revealed to us, but a good parent does not just share with children their opinion. Their children will form their own opinions – we all know that – but parenting means sharing the truth – and guiding their children in the truth.

The broad implications of this, again, are more than I could possibly cover in a half-hour chat with you, but hopefully I can spark your interest in recognizing what we are seeing unfold in our nation right now, what we are seeing in the Vatican with some of the conflicts even between what the Church is saying and through voices in the world today and what is happening in this nation. It speaks of the broader implications for society of honoring your father and your mother. It comes down to details like what we are struggling so much with as a nation in this time – do we have the right to establish proper, just borders and a system of welcoming those who wish to come in proper and lawful, with just ways, compassionate always? In many ways in the world today we have forgotten what real compassion is, and that lawlessness is never ultimately compassionate. It may look compassionate initially in a superficial way, but when we just give in to lawlessness, whether it is in the family, in the nation, or in the world, we are causing harm because we are bringing chaos where there should be order. So the broader implications of this Fourth Commandment – honor your father and your mother – radiates out into many things that are going on in our nation today.

I think that all of us, sadly, would have to acknowledge that there has been, in my lifetime, and I am sure I have mentioned this before (66 years old, born in 1958), and in my lifetime especially, if we just look at history through that lens, there has been a desperately serious erosion of authority - authority in the family, authority in the community, authority in the nation, and the authority of God. And when we see that erosion of authority – once again it is embedded in this commandment and really all the commandments – but honoring your father and your mother too often does not happen, and it has implications for how we operate in society. It extends beyond just the family, and the Catechism also says that this commandment extends beyond just the family. The Catechism teaches that it applies to respect for legitimate authority in society, including in the Church, teachers and civil leaders (CCC 2234-2243). A just society is built on respect for rightful authority, but that authority must also serve the common good and uphold God’s law.

All of this reminds me, and it applies to any of you who are listening who have children and you are struggling, and maybe also struggling with your relationship with your parents and honoring your father and your mother. Sometimes the real human circumstances are a struggle, but we have to respect authority, and what I am reminded of is the balancing there that we are aways challenged with – I certainly am as a bishop – and in my life as a priest. When there are rights, there are responsibilities that correspond with those rights. You could say that parents have a right to be honored by their children as their father and mother, but as the catechism says, and we have already talked about, that right of parents to be honored also has a corresponding duty of parents to live up to that honoring and to model their lives on God. And that basic framework fits with the life of the Church as well.

The Catholic church is one of hierarchal authority, and that is being undermined sometimes by those in the hierarchy themselves in the world today. But that structure of hierarchal authority really is what makes authority legitimate, because ultimately what we are reminded of, and I have had to personally delve into this in the circumstances of my life, “What is real obedience? What is real authority? What is real honor of father and mother?” It ultimately, as the commandments as they are ordered remind us, it begins with God, and that is true for honoring our father and mother and honoring any authority, and that is sort of an echo, of honoring father and mother. When an authority is not honoring God, then we have a problem, and we have that problem in the world today with individuals in the church – sometimes Pope Francis, sometimes cardinals, sometimes bishops – not honoring the truth that God has revealed to us. That is not meant as, nor should it be, any kind of attack, but it fits really with what this is all about: “What is real authority?”

Ultimately it always traces back to God who is Truth by His very existence. He has all authority, as Jesus Himself says. All power in heaven and on earth has been granted to Him by God our Father. So we have to know and believe that the structure that God has given us for human society and for the Church, for the world and for families is a hierarchal structure, and everyone in that hierarchal structure, in whatever place, the youngest child to the most elderly mother or father in a family, and the same correspondingly with whatever echo of that we find in the church or in society – everyone has the duty to look to God, to be guided by God’s truth, to proclaim not their opinion but the truth that God has revealed to us. And we see a serious breakdown of that basic responsibility that we all share, and that is one reason that certainly we need to pray for each other, but specifically with regard to this Fourth Commandment – we need to pray for each other. Pray for mothers and fathers. Pray for all who have some vestige of authority in the church or in the world today. Pray that we will ultimately turn to Christ, turn to Him as our example. As I said, all authority in heaven and in earth has been granted to Him. And that is the model we are challenged to embrace.

I fall short, we all fall short, we are all sinners, but we have to keep working at facing that challenge of the model of authority that Christ has offered, and certainly the first thing that comes to mind with Christ’s example is an authority of service and humility. He tells his apostles at the Last Supper when he confects the Eucharist for the first time – He tells the apostles that they must serve and not seek to be served. That basic model applies to the mothers and fathers, who should be seeking to live as those worthy of the honor that God has commanded that they should deserve as mother and father of children. So Christ is really the model that we look to.

Jesus Himself honored Mary and Joseph, submitting to them in His youth (Luke 2:51). We know those stories – when Jesus was found in the temple at 12 years old – it beautifully says he goes back to obediently and reverently live in the community of His home with Mary and Joseph. The Holy Family, as many have said through the centuries, is a great model for us of living all the commandments, especially honor your father and your mother. And Jesus gives us that example of honoring his mother absolutely, and St. Joseph who is his foster father. That, I think, is a beautiful reflection for all of us. Jesus models for us that the human being, the man that God His Father, His Eternal Father, the First Person of the Trinity, that God the Father chose, Joseph, to be the human foster father of Jesus – and Jesus lives out His love for His Heavenly Father, our Heavenly Father, by His reverence and obedience to Joseph.

Imagine how it must have been for Mary and Joseph to recognize Jesus’ obedience and respect and honor of them even though they knew His ultimate Father is God. He respected them and gives us the model of that honor that we offer our parents is about, and the honor that we offer authority. And once again, who are Mary and Joseph? They are certainly - Mary, the Mother of Jesus biologically and in every way, and St. Joseph, the foster father of Jesus, as I have shared with you. But also, besides that, this beautiful and critically important relationship that Jesus has with Joseph and Mary, they are also model disciples. And I think that echoes again the importance of what I began speaking about as I shared with you this chat today – the importance of all this for family.

This commandment of honoring your father and your mother is critically important for the ordering of our families and for the ordering of society. We can all feel overwhelmed with what is going on in the world, and there are many circumstances, there are many real problems in the world that interfere with parents being those who deserve the honor that children owe them. But I encourage, I urge parents – mothers and fathers – and their children to stay at it – to keep working – to overcome the obstacles that sometimes society throws at us, and to be discerning and prayerful. Ultimately, all of us in seeking to fulfill these commandments, we have to turn to God, and to pray and ask for the grace of God and the strength of the Holy Spirit to guide us, and the light of Christ to light our way. Jesus gives us the example of doing this, and when He dies on the Cross, if you look at His words as He is dying, they are words of service, focused on those He is seeking to save through His sacrifice of love.

To me, it all comes back to the importance of those relationships, And we can truly say in this tremendous mystery that is Jesus Christ, we can truly say that He learned as a man the proper honor of Mary and Joseph, his mother and father, and He learned through that what He demonstrates on the Cross – that we honor God, we honor our father and mother, we keep the right order of things, when we recognize the importance of the truth that guides us, and we give the proper honor and respect to those who are part of our lives and who are guiding us ultimately to God our Father. Jesus entrusted St. John the apostle into the hands of Mary, and said, “Son, this is your mother.” And to Mary he said, “Mother, this is your son.” Beautifully really telling us how the church is structured as well, as a family of faith, mother and father – God our Father, Mary our Mother, and we are the children, and we owe our Heavenly Father, our Heavenly Mother honor, and we owe worship and honor to God Himself.

Mary is always, like St. Joseph, that humble, often quiet, but powerful and strong image of being obedient, being focused, being one who honors the authority in our lives. And that is a way of honoring our own parents and of operating properly in the world today.

So as I conclude one more time with you in this episode, I would just underscore once again the importance of looking at our families. None of them are perfect; they are all flawed because we are all flawed human beings, and we are coming together in this community of family. And I would urge all of us, whatever family means to us (and it can mean different things in the sense of who are the members), but that basic structure must be respected, a man and a woman becoming a mother and father after committing together as husband and wife – a man and woman are required as those two foundation pillars of the family. If it is God’s will, though love and procreation, children are born to that family.

For the couple who has no children, they still carry the same obligations, in different ways, and maybe extending more out into society. If they do not choose to adopt children, if they are a childless couple, they are still obligated to this honoring of father and mother, and the structures of society, and specifically in the structure of the church. We must all be working together. We all have a significant role from our baptism. We are all called to be salt and light for the world. It is not just those certain disciples but all of us.

Let us rejoice in the opportunities that we have to truly put these commandments into practice and with this Fourth Commandment – “Honor your father and mother.” Let us remember the importance of family, and to actively pray for our families, to sacrifice and fast and to pray for our families, and to look for the ways that we can do a better job of honoring our mother and father, and to living up, for those of us who are mothers and fathers, living up to the honor that we are due because we are properly ordered in God’s kingdom.

And may God bless all of us and guide us in the light of His Son.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Yours in Christ,

Bishop Joseph E. Strickland

Bishop Emeritus