A great role, this role of fatherhood, which not a few parents today have tried to abdicate, opting for a relationship on a par with their children, which ends up depriving the children of that psychological support and that moral backing which they need to successfully get through the precarious stage of childhood and early adolescence. Someone has said that today we are experiencing the crisis of a "fatherless society". We notice ever more clearly the need to be able to count on fathers who can fulfill their role, combining tenderness with seriousness, understanding with strictness, camaraderie with the exercise of authority, because only in this way will children be able to grow harmoniously, overcoming their fears and preparing themselves to meet courageously the unknown factors in life.
But where, dear fathers, will you be able to draw the energy necessary to assume in various circumstances the right attitude that your children, even without knowing it, expect from you? Saint Joseph offers you the answer to this: it is in God, the source of all fatherhood, it is in his way of acting with men, which is revealed to us by Sacred Scripture that you can find the model of a fatherhood capable of making a positive impression on the educational process of your children, not smothering their spontaneity on the one hand, nor abandoning their still immature personality to the traumatizing experiences of insecurity and loneliness on the other.
Blessed John Paul II
Saint Joseph the Worker, Man of Faith and Prayer
March 19, 1983
