June 19, 2022 - "Father's Day"

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads, granddads, step-dads out there who are reading this column.  Some of you may be wondering how Father’s Day came about.  Many Catholic countries observe Father’s Day on March 19^th, the Solemnity of Saint Joseph. 
 
Although Mother’s Day had its origins in the peace and reconciliation efforts of the post-Civil War, the first Father’s Day wasn’t celebrated until 1908.  On July 5, 1908, a church in West Virginia sponsored the first event explicitly in honor of fathers because 362 men died in the previous December’s explosions at the Fairmont Coal Company in Monongah, West Virginia.  This was thought of as a one-time event and not an annual commemoration.
 
How did an annual commemoration come about? In 1909, Sonora Smart Dodd, who lived in Spokane, Washington and was one of six children who was raised by a widower, tried to establish an official equivalent to Mother’s Day for male parents.  She went to local churches, the YMCA, shopkeepers, and government officials to obtain support for her idea.  She was successful in her efforts.  Washington State celebrated the first statewide Father’s Day on June 19, 1910.
 
Slowly the idea of an annual commemoration for Fathers started to spread.  In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson honored the day by using telegraph signals to unfurl a flag in Spokane from the White House in Washington, DC.  In 1924 President Calvin Coolidge urged state governments to observe Father’s Day.
 
In the 1920s a movement developed to scrap Mother’s Day altogether in favor of a single holiday: Parent’s Day.  Interestingly enough, the Great Depression derailed this effort to combine and decommercialize the holidays.  Struggling merchants redoubled their efforts to make Father’s Day a “second Christmas” for men, promoting such things as neckties, hats, socks, pipes and tobacco, golf clubs, other sporting items, and, of course, greeting cards.
 
When World War II began, advertisers began to argue that celebrating Father’s Day was a way to honor American troops and support the war effort.  By the end of 1945, Father’s Day may not have been a federal holiday, but it was a national institution.

In 1957, Senator Margaret Chase Smith (R-Maine) wrote a bill to establish Father’s Day, making the observation that it was unfair to have a Mother’s Day and not have a Father’s Day. In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson issued a proclamation establishing Father’s Day on the third Sunday of June.  Finally, in 1972, President Richard Nixon signed a bill establishing Father’s Day as a national holiday.
 
In the Book of Blessings, a Blessing for Father’s Day is provided.  This can be used as a Prayer over the People at the end of Mass. Let me present that Blessing for you:
 
God our Father, in your wisdom and love you made all things. Bless these men, that they may be strengthened as Christian fathers. Let the example of their faith and love shine forth. Grant that we, their sons and daughters, may honor them always with a spirit of profound respect.
 
Grant this through Christ our Lord. R. Amen.
 
Until next week,
Fr. John