As we begin a new year, we are reminded of the basic commandment to love our fathers. Doing so assures us of our reward that God promised us. Apt is this day to remind all and sundry of the basic tenet about loving fathers. Many times people tend to disregard fathers and altogether forget about loving them. Their presence in our midst makes living normal and easy and we fail to feel the importance of their being.
Without them, we would not have been into this world. They were the instruments that God has chosen in His grand plan of procreation. The role of the father in the procreation is very much vital that life will never be sustained over generations without their share and contribution to life.
Man was sent forth by God to go to the world and multiply. The commandment is without qualification or any form of condition. But man was given the free will to do what is right and in his rationale discernment must exercise responsibility of his acts. With procreation is the great responsibility of providing support to the offspring that couples may beget in the sacred union of marriage. Such is the great responsibility placed upon all fathers who cares and loves for all of God’s creations.
But the commandment to love fathers is similarly unqualified and unconditional. We are called by God to love our father and show them respect. Such is our responsibility too, and we must do so without any qualifications or conditions. We are to love our father whatever they may be. No less than Jesus Christ had taught us by example how to love our father. He showed us the goodness of a respectful and obedient child so that we may have a model to emulate.
At times we thought that only those who are good deserve to be loved. With this mindset, we tend to make justifications not to be loving fathers who are not good anyway. We feel holding back the love we ought to give fathers who are not deserving of the love and respect we are supposed to give. When we see fathers who are irresponsible and do not love their children and family, we entertain the thought that such fathers do not merit being loved as well.
We might have seen in Jesus Christ as a loving child to His father because His is one who is truly deserving of such love and respect. But we need to accept the reality that not all fathers are epitomes of righteous virtues to merit our love, but we still must love them anyway.
Today is the most opportune time to reflect about the great roles that fathers play in our lives. This too is the moment for all fathers to reexamine their being so and accept the challenge to be deserving of the great role and the great love that every father deserves. We ought to give our respect and love to all fathers, be they biological, spiritual or by personal vocation.
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