This If men were writing the rules... Guys, if we were writing the rules,

Rule #1 would be: Anything that we said six or eight months ago is inadmissable in an argument. All comments become null and void after seven days. (Lots of laughter.) That must mean a lot in your house.

Rule #2: If we say something that can be interpreted in two ways, and one of those ways makes you angry or sad, we mean it the other way.

Rule #3: It is in neither your best interest, nor ours, to make me take one of those stupid Cosmopolitan magazine quizzes together..... I guess nobody takes that subscription, huh?

Rule #4: You can either ask us to do something or tell us how you want it done, not both.

Rule #5: Whenever possible, please say whatever you have to say during the commercials or time outs. Christopher Columbus didn’t need irections and neither do we. And when turning the wheel of the car off the ramp, it’s not necessary to say, “Honey, is this our exit?”

This is Father’s Day! In my humble estimation, there very definitely is a male spirituality. It’s not contra the spirituality of women. It’s just a very unique perspective that guys have. Actually, Father Timoney gave me this book last night. It’s Tim Russert’s. I think he’s on CNN. He wrote a book about his own father, called “Big Russ and Me.” And it became a national best seller, talking about the relationship that he had with his dad. He ended up with sixty thousand letters and e-mails and responses to him about the way in which he had dealt with his dad, and how his dad and their relationship had helped other such people’s relationships. And so he thought he would write a second book.This time, it was some of the critical observations he noticed in the responses he had received. He noticed that they were overwhelmingly positive, that men did tend to be more silent and less expressive, and that a lot of men, especially the people born during the war and the post-war experience, never used those three little words, “I love you.” And so that lack of expression ended up being, for a lot of people, a kind of a painful experience. Or those little words, “I’m sorry.” And so, the book talks about that and there’s a real sense of one chapter just on forgiveness, which ties in really well to the gospel today.

This past couple of days, I have been up at the Sacramento River with our kids and ten families from Christ the King School, everything from a little kindergartner all the way through the seventh grade. And so I came up to say Mass for them on the Friday night as they were camping and then Kate, the Youth Minister, came up with us. And we went river rafting with guides down the river. How many of you have river rafted? So we did the white water rafting. And one of the parishoners actually tried to pull Father (meaning me!) out of the boat. He jumped (I’ll tell you his name too because I told him I would tell everybody about it.) His name is Jimmy Blair, and he jumped because we had these water guns and I was shooting water as we went down river. It was the child in me coming out., you see. So he got it right in the face and he jumped from one boat to the other to pull me in. But I held on really tightly. (But, anyway, I don’t even know why I told you that!)

The next day, we were going down the river with about thirty little kids and, at one point, one of the boats got caught on a rock. And so one of the little girls who was about six (actually Sister Joanne’s nephew and great niece) started to scream blue murder. She got really, really frightened. And then all the girls on the boat got really frightened, and then one or two of the little guys as well. But when the boat was brought over to the side and the other three boats stopped, it was really wonderful to see Sister Joanne’s nephew lift this little five-year-old girl, set her aside and then another little girl came along cause she was freezing and cold and they both sat on his knees and he was really very fatherly, very nurturing. And it just was this wonderful moment. I was really happy he did this because we would have had to walk five miles if we didn’t get back into the boat. But he was encouraging them that it was going to be safe and that it was going to be OK for us to get back into the boat and go back down the river. To me, that was a really wonderful real life experience of what a father could be, strong, reassuring, a role model and somebody who could be really loving and be caring. And then, as we got into the boat, this Jimmy that tried to pull me into the river the day before, his little girl who is four was a little bouncey on the river. So she just crawled in the back of the boat and wrapped her arms around one of his legs, and he said to her, “What’s wrong, honey?” She said, “I just want Daddy.” And it was another moment when, you know that relationship between a child and a father, and a strong bond. It was really a beautiful experience.

Today, in the gospel and in the first reading, you hear a father who has done something really egregious and wrong. But God forgives him what he has done. But even when things are done wrong, there are still natural consequences to the fact that you have done something wrong. He ended up having to pay a very high price. But God forgave him. And in the gospel, we see that we can be forgiven just like that woman in a very powerful way. Forgiven, we are always forgiven through the Pascal Mystery, the death and resurrection of Christ. We are forgiven and that is the message of the gospel today. It reminded me of a number of years ago, in 1979. That was the year of the Olympics in Los Angeles. Wasn’t it? Anyway, not important, but my parents went off to Spain for the first time. And I was nineteen and there are five of us steps of stairs. And so, my father was saying, “Now you guys better be good, no parties... Your aunts and uncles will be watching.” So, there were no parties, but my mother had always wanted the entire house painted from top to bottom, a new kitchen and a new bathroom. So, as soon as they went out the door, my brothers and I went and got the paint. We painted the entire house from top to bottom. My Uncle Dennis came over. He’s the brick-layer. “Are you sure we can do this? Your father won’t like this!” Cause my dad really didn’t care for change. So the next day, we had the entire kitchen ripped out, an entire new kitchen put in and a new bathroom. So, when Mom and Dad came home through the door, everybody was waiting with baited breath, cause Mom was just dancing through the house, really excited. But I could tell somebody else wasn’t happy.... And so, by that night, when everybody had gone to bed, I was feeling pretty happy with myself, getting lauded for all these wonderful things. And I realized as my Dad put down the newspaper and looked over the glasses, that I knew in that moment he was having a really hard time with this, so much so that I wondered would he ever forgive me. And I guess the fact that I got the silent treatment for a whole week after it really told me that he was really angry.

It wasn’t until a few weeks ago when I was doing the divorce ministry that one of the ladies in the divorce ministry said, “Father, I really wanted my husband to change. But you know what, it’s like standing kicking a Coke machine and wanting lemonade to come out. He was never going to change. And there was never lemonade going to come out of the Coke machine. I needed to change my perspective, and I needed to change.” And, all of a sudden, in my mind, I thought back to my Dad and all those years gone. It really upset me that he never validated that experience. Suddenly I realized this was his house. He was the boss. I always played my mom up against my dad. You do that when you’re a teenager cause you know you’ll get one away with the other. You know, when you’re a little kid, you think your dad is the greatest person in the world. You get to be a teenager and you play your parents off, and you think your parents are a little lame. ..... Hello? You’ve all thought that. And then by the time you get older and wiser, you realize how different it is when you have your own kids, or you have a more mature experience. And I realized that my dad absolutely hated change. He hated anything being changed. And it gave me a whole new perspective in that moment. That word “change” was able to free me and I could hear, even though he is in heaven, a moment of reconciliation with him and me. And it was a very powerful moment, and it was one word, “change,” that created this sense of reconciliation and forgiveness.

Fathers are unsung heroes. They are a necessary wonderful gift for all of us in our culture. What I would love for you to do right now is very simple, to turn to the person beside you, say your dad’s name or the father figure’s name in your life. And then what they did for a living and one happy memory. Name, job and one happy memory.......

Talk!