Catholic Men Forgive my hidden faults

Apr 11, 2011

“Forgive me, Lord, my failures as a father.”

This is not just a special prayer that I have developed for Lent. This prayer has been on my lips countless times over the past three years, ever since I became a father. Parenting can bring to the surface, like nothing else, your every fault.

The other day, it was my daughter melting down in the middle of Mass over a trifle, and my exaggerated response. Tonight, it was getting angry with my boys for again breaking the cover off the radiator pipes.

There’s a pattern to the interplay: I pray for grace and start feeling like I’m doing pretty well, until the smallest thing happens and my virtue crumbles to dust. Afterward, as I reflect on the incident and my anger, I recall St. James saying that “the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God” (James 1:20). So I repent and ask God to help me do better next time. Sometimes I feel hopeful that I will do better. Other times, when the weight of past failures hangs heavily on me, I have doubts about making progress.

The scariest thing about being a father is contemplating all of the ways I am failing but don’t know it. I think back to my own father during my childhood and see now that he made many mistakes, systematic ones that he never realized. He was blind to them. And though I am striving not to make those same mistakes with my children, what other faults do I have that I don’t yet see?

King David knew this same struggle: “But who can discern his errors? Cleanse me from my unknown faults. From willful sins keep your servant; let them never control me” (Psalm 19:13-14). Though we may not presently know our hidden faults – that’s why they are called “hidden” after all – we can pray as David did to be forgiven them. And we can ask Jesus to help us remove these planks from our own eyes so that we might better see to help others, especially our children, remove the specks from theirs.

Fortunately, each day God offers us opportunities to redeem ourselves. After getting angry and speaking too harshly to my sons, my wife gently suggests that I go back into their room and comfort them. I don’t want to (at least at first), since my pride and resentment prefer to fester, but I know those are temptations. I go to my sons and hug them and tell them I love them and listen to their little stories from the day. I ask them for forgiveness. I know that in the middle of the night, there’s a good chance that one of them will have a nightmare or need a drink of water and want to be tucked back into bed. My wife and I will be equally groggy, so I can show my love to her and our children by willing myself to get up and letting her sleep.

It is in these little acts of love and forgiveness that I take heart, for the Bible says that “love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). How comforting are those words! I know  that I will fail again, but even more confidently I know that God will forgive me and help me overcome these failings, giving me chances to make amends and begin again. Fatherhood would be an impossible vocation were it not for God’s gracious help. But with his help we can become, like King David, men after his own heart.