We thank God today for the fathers who are (or who have been) very good men. We thank God for the loving, hard-working, faithful providers and protectors of our families. We thank God for the men of faith in our lives who have loved us as our fathers or with a father’s love.
“God our Father, in your wisdom and love you made all things. Bless our fathers, living and deceased. Let the example of their faith and love shine forth. Grant that we, their families, may love and honor them always with a spirit of profound respect. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
On this Father’s Day, let us also acknowledge that there are many people who never knew their dads, there are some who have been abandoned by their dads or estranged from their dads by circumstance, there are some whose father’s have gone before us, and there are also many who have sadly never known a father’s love and care. For all of these people, Father’s Day can be a hard day, a sad day, a day of missing someone much beloved or grieving now what never was, or musing on what might have been. So we pray as well, for all of those who, for one reason or another, are without their dads this Father’s Day. “Loving Father, help them recapture their best memories and celebrate them with joy, help them pardon what seems unforgivable and move beyond the hurt, and bring them to your peace and into the arms of your love. Amen.”
