Human fatherhood arises only through this gift of unity with the beautiful mystery which is woman. Furthermore, it is only through God’s gift that man receives the possibility of being a father.
In Mulieris Dignitatem (On the Dignity & Vocation of Women), Blessed Pope John Paul II observed “that man cannot exist ‘alone’ (cf. Gen. 2:18); he can exist only as a ‘unity of the two,’ and therefore in relation to another human person.”
“Being a person in the image and likeness of God…involves existing in a relationship,” the pope wrote. It is in this relational aspect of being that “we can understand even more fully what constitutes the personal character of the human being.”
God’s self-revelation of his inner life as the unity of the Trinity in a communion of persons sheds further light on the meaning of man created in God’s image and likeness. Not only is man and woman individually like God, but in the “unity of the two in their common humanity, [they] are called to live in a communion of love” like that which is in God.
This deeper understanding of personal being invokes a call and a task for both man and woman. That task is succinctly expressed by Pope John Paul II, “In the ‘unity of the two,’ man and woman are called from the beginning not only to exist ‘side by side’ or ‘together,’ but they are also called to exist mutually ‘one for the other’.”
From Vatican II nearly 50 years ago, a passage from Gaudium et Spes recalls, “man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself.” This task or vocation to the gift of self can only be realized through free, responsible action. To restate what is noted previously, it is the constitutive character of personal being. This act of the free gift of self by man is preceded by a more original gift of self that makes man’s gift possible. It is in the being of creation itself which is not just fact but in essence is a free gift from God to every created being. It derives from God’s free will and is directed toward the freedom of created being to accept the gift and to respond as a gift. This exchange of self-giving becomes an interpersonal dialogue from one to the other, originating from God to man and in His image and likeness finding human expression between man and woman.
This vocation to giftedness which is to be lived out in the “unity of the two” culminates in the gift of being father or mother and finds fulfillment in the free self-gift of God. Human mystery finds its definitive light in Christ, who, “by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear.” Humanity therefore finds itself fully revealed in Christ and through His sacrifice is called into adoption as sons and daughters of God. Our relationship to God as children to the Father enables us to become spouses and thus father or mother.
The overabundance of God’s original gift bears fruit in the sacrament of matrimony. This fruit is the openness to communicating the gift which is first received from God. Its expression arises from the total self-gift of the man and woman in unity with the other. From this unity comes the child and through the child the gift of being father and mother.
If a man is to claim the gift of being a father, he must first accept the mystery of woman’s unique giftedness to be a mother. The woman offers herself totally and freely as a gift to her husband in order to receive God’s gift of her own maternity, and in order to fully receive his wife’s self-gift man must give himself freely and totally to her. Unless they do this, they deny God’s gift of fatherhood and motherhood. To deny God’s gift is to deny their own dignity as adopted sons and daughters of the Father.
It cannot be stated enough that from the beginning man was created to receive the gift of God and to respond to His gift with his own, self-gift. Subsequent to the creation of Eve, this task of receiving the gift of the other and responding with his own, self-gift was to be extended to his wife in that the “two shall become one.”
The difficulties we have in living this out today arises from original sin in which the man and his wife, faced with the trickery of the serpent, took and ate the fruit, which had not been given to them. Ever since original sin mankind has been plagued with a desire to take rather than to receive. This is often disguised by a false notion of receiving when something is presented as a gift but the conditions placed upon the thing prevent it from being a free gift.
Finally, we arrive at the truth of fatherhood. We find its finest human expression in St. Joseph who cooperated with the great mystery of salvation in the fullness of time as determined by God. He thus made his life one of service to Mary; to Jesus; and to the mission of redemption connected to Jesus.