Listen My Son. Dwight Longenecker
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of things’ with four young children: Benedict, Madeleine, Theodore and Elias. It could not have been written without them and it certainly could not have been considered without my wife, whose example in self-giving teaches me every day. Without them I would be a solitary hermit. With them I am a faltering abbot.
If I have had the courage to attempt fatherhood and to attempt to write on it, then I have my own father to thank. Indeed, if I have any Christian faith at all I have him to thank. He and my mother brought up five children in an evangelical tradition to ‘know and love the Lord’. As a result each one of us has kept the faith and managed to build our own Christian marriages and families the best we know how. In this day and age my parents’ success is a noteworthy accomplishment. My father knew nothing about St Benedict, but his example of fatherhood was close to the Benedictine ideal I set out here. He was strict but understanding. When he said, ‘This hurts me more than it hurts you…’, we believed it. He taught us to respect physical things and one another. He always stressed the need for good stewardship, balance and gentleness of mind. Most of all he was unfailing in his spiritual life. He led the family in prayer and we saw him pray. We knew he gave sacrificially. We saw him get involved in the local church, in the international church and in Christian mission. Because his faith was real and active we have faith today, for children do what their parents do, not necessarily what their parents say.
Finally, if I presume to comment on the sacred Rule of St Benedict I must thank June, a Benedictine oblate, who first encouraged me to visit a monastery over twenty years ago. Among many monastic friends, the late Abbot of Quarr, Dom Leo Avery, was a humble father and spiritual guide. Dom Joseph McNerney gave friendship and proved an intelligent and understanding pastor on our journey into the Catholic Church. The community at Mont St Michel have always given me a warm Gallic welcome, and the monks at Downside Abbey, especially Dom Daniel Rees, have encouraged and helped me with this text. Finally, Dom Laurence Kelly shows me a life full of grace, wisdom and joy. He is the old porter who opens the door for me with a word of thanks and blessing.
Dwight Longenecker
Chippenham
The Feast of St Joseph
19 March 1999
INTRODUCTION
The Challenge of Fatherhood
When St Benedict says, ‘Listen my son to the advice of a loving father’ he calls us into an intimate child-parent relationship. The need to be nurtured and guided through life doesn't cease when we reach the magic age of eighteen. In every stage of life we need the wisdom, concern and love of a father figure. If we are fathers ourselves, the need for a mentor is even greater. We cannot be good fathers if we do not have a good father in our own life.
Jesus taught us to call God ‘father’ and this teaching flowed from his own intimate relationship with God the father. Jesus called God ‘Abba’ or ‘papa’. With such an intimate term he reveals the tenderness and strength which should exist between fathers and children, and between us and our heavenly father. In recent years the concept of fatherhood has lost its attraction, and some people view fathers as the source of every ill in society. Of course many have suffered at the hands of poor fathers. Many have also suffered from inadequate mothering. But the failure of some fathers does not negate the need for positive, potent and compassionate fatherhood. Indeed bad fathering makes the need for good fathers even more acute. The foundation of successful fathering is a living relationship with God the Father. It is only from a dynamic spiritual relationship with him that human fathers can hope to do their very best for their children.
This primary relationship with God the Father can be nurtured and developed through the spiritual fathers we find within the family of the church. In a spiritual director or wise confessor God gives us a spiritual father to help us on our journey. Like St Jospeh, our spiritual director adopts us as his own. He protects and provides for us until we reach maturity. St Benedict has been a spiritual father for countless men and women for well over fifteen hundred years. Through his little rule generations of monks, nuns and lay people have heard the voice of a wise and loving father who wishes to guide them to perfection.
A guide for fathers is vital today since fatherhood has been so neglected. Christian fathers especially need resources to foster their paternal role. Many men in our society are confused and bewildered by a whole array of contradictory expectations. Short-term contracts, performance-related pay and high pressure competition pushes fatherhood into second place. On the one hand, the ‘new man’ is expected to be the perfect father and husband, while the voices of those who may have been injured by bad fathering often portray all fathers as domineering villains.
Quick divorce and re-marriage, along with the financial attraction of co-habitation, and a mentality which separates sexuality from procreation encourage many men to avoid marriage and fatherhood altogether, or to walk out on the family once the stresses of real family life begin to develop. The younger generation of men can hardly be blamed. Many young men are themselves the product of broken homes, where in most cases it was the father who was the absent parent. Without a father it is impossible for them to be fathers.
However, within this grim scenario there is cause for great hope. Fatherhood may be neglected and despised, but there are signs of a swing back. In all sorts of low-key ways men are returning to the priority of parenting. In larger enterprises which cross cultural and religious boundaries men are being encouraged to take their domestic responsibilities seriously; to return to their families and to take up the challenge of compassionate leadership within the home. Men who have been excluded from their homes and children by harsh divorce laws are fighting back for the rights of fathers. Through marriage guidance, counselling and self-help programmes thousands of men are learning new ways of relating to their wives and families, and finding renewal in the heart of their homes. In addition, an increasing number of firms are recognizing the need for paternity leave, shorter hours and proper responses to family requirements; recognizing that a man who is fulfilled at home is a better and more productive worker. Many men who work for impersonal multinational firms are discovering that it is within family life that they have true identity, and there they discover a sense of belonging and a true vocation.
This return to fatherhood should not be seen as an attempt to turn the clock back. If an old patriarchy has died it is so that a better view of fatherhood can be resurrected. The new fatherhood is not a return to an antiquated patriarchy in which the man is king and the woman a mere chattel. Instead the new father is caring, involved and fully integrated into the life of the family. The new father relates with his wife on equal terms. There is a new interdependence and complementary self-giving which recognizes the advances in women's self-understanding as well as the demands of modern society. If the mother has had a more formative role on children in recent years, then the new father is now sharing that function in full partnership with her. If she shares the bread-winning, then he shares in the child-care. The new father is there not as the king, but as the servant–king. In fact, while this approach to fatherhood seems new, it is there in the Scriptural pattern for marriage, and St Benedict points to it in his chapter on mutual obedience. The new fatherhood does not expect obedience or respect by right, but earns respect and obedience by self-sacrifice and compassionate leadership.
This kind of fatherhood is hard work, but it pays rich dividends. Not only is the man rewarded with loyal and loving children as he grows older, but he also enjoys a deepening and more profound relationship with his wife. In addition, his children go out into the world brimming with confidence and strength from his contribution.
Finally, it is easy to see the decay and confusion in modern life and to run for cover. The instinctive response of Christian parents may be to construct a family fortress against the wicked world. But while the home is a place of refuge, it is also a place of preparation and interaction with the wider world. Parents will best protect their children from the destructive forces in the world not by running away from them, but by equipping their children to engage with the world in a creative and dynamic way. In fact, there may be no more effective way to make the world a better place than for men and women to take their responsibility as parents seriously, and so contribute members of society who are responsible, compassionate