Becoming Father

Fourth Sunday of Advent

“Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”

Matthew 1:20

A pastor and mentor of mine shared how much more real the Father’s love became for him at the birth of his son. As he held this new life in his arms, the unconditional love was unmistakable and overwhelming. It was one of the most significant spiritual experiences of his life, forming his relationship with his son and transforming his relationship with his heavenly Father.

I anticipated a similar inspiration of God’s love for me at the birth of my first son.

Boy was I wrong.

After about the seventh time jolting awake in a fit of panic at his quietest newborn whimper, I wasn’t feeling very loving at all. I felt confronted with this new person who was bound to me yet remained a stranger. The months of growth, anticipation, bonding, and struggle of pregnancy were largely lost on me as the father. At birth, I met this child for the first time in a way that was not true for the mother or even the child. Rather than inspiring, it was terrifying and frankly exhausting.

But his cries were a voice calling out fatherhood from me. As we brought him home, the late nights spent bouncing him to sleep became offerings of love. Each answered cry pulled back the shroud over my fatherhood. The Father’s heart became a bit clearer and closer. How fitting to find the self-giving heart of God in the sacrifice of love.

We recently invited our third child, and first daughter, into the world. Full of life (at all hours of the day or night) she reminds us of our position in this world as people, people bound to each other with duties, needs, love, and life. This very naturally brings us to the end of ourselves. She isn’t just a mini Nathaniel—she is an other whom God has given. Roger Scruton writes in The Face of God:

The I-You relation is both distinctive of persons and also constitutive of them. It is by addressing each other as ‘you’ that we bind ourselves in the web of inter-personal relations, and it is by virtue of our place in the web that we are persons. Personhood is a relational condition, and I am a person insofar as I can enter into personal relations with others like me.

My daughter brings out the ‘me’ of myself when she cries out for her father. My response confirms both of us, transforming us from strangers into family and making both of us more of who God calls us to be.

What might St. Joseph have felt when confronted with the other within Mary’s womb? Fearful? Inadequate? Weary? He faced a stranger who would call him out of himself. Gabriel commands him to take courage and to enter into this relationship, for “what is conceived is from the Holy Spirit.” This was a gift from God! This earth-shattering other would bring transformation not just to the holy family but to the whole world. And St. Joseph was positioned at ground zero of this global recreation.

The Advent season reminds me of the people who surround me: the strangers, the friends, and the family. As with St. Joseph, Advent invites me to become a gift to each of these people. Whether trifling or titanic, I am to be somebody to them. A faceless body I cannot remain.

The self is its own limitation. Incurvatus in se, to be turned in on oneself, is a curse. Our selfish worlds are hells we create to convince ourselves that earth cannot contain heaven. But heaven has broken through. The other confronts these worlds, inviting us into something more, something whole, something transformative, something new.

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Nathaniel Moore is an administrative assistant at DSM in Kansas City. He and his wife have three children and attend St. Aidan’s Anglican Church where they are both involved in children’s ministry. He enjoys reading and writing, theology and philosophy, and dissecting words and ideas.