Malachi 4:6: “He will turn the hearts
of the fathers to their children, and the
hearts of the children to their fathers;
or else I will come and strike the land
with total destruction.”
REMEMBER how deeply I was struck by this scripture when I first encountered it as a parent. I was a new father, and still had a lot to learn. Even now, as I ponder it, I realize I still do! I have eight children—one of whom was just married—on down to my five year old. We have homeschooled them all, and within that context, I have come to appreciate the “unwritten curriculum” of the role of the father in the home.
Fatherless Children • Something prevalent in modern culture is fatherless children. Indeed, we can see and imagine that if families had “present” fathers, we’d cease to see the levels of loss of religion, addiction, crime, disinterest in education, lack of common sense, and listlessness that we do seem to see among the young … even in “normal” suburban hubs where schools are full. I don’t necessarily mean children with no dad. I mean “absent” fathers. This even exists in homes where the family is nuclear and the father is not divorced from the mother, but everything “seems normal”. For that matter, this effect takes place with mothers as well—but for our purposes, we’ll focus on the “roots” of a family (and by extension, society): fathers.
Professor Of Psychology • I once had a psychology professor tell me that fathers provide the “bucket” (for instance, things like boundaries), and the mother whatever goes into the bucket (love, care, concern for others, and so forth.). That being said, to develop his idea further, I think it’s true that the father not only provides the bucket but also the capacity to receive what the mother may in turn fill it with. For as goes the father, so the child. In seeing his father love and nurture his mother, he gives the child the capacity to receive her. Notice this is simply the capacity to do so—it does not mean it will happen. So too though, the child needs to see the father be the authority figure in his home – at minimal, in matters of his religion. But also, the child must see the father love Christ, his wife, and his children. Acts of love in the family make present the love of the Heavenly Father for the Son, and the Son for the Father, indeed the love of the Trinity.
The Church Fathers • To better understand this scripture passage, let’s view it through the person of John the Baptist, and how our Church Fathers understood its importance for the Church. By extension, we can draw lessons in having a loving authority from it as fathers. (I know I have.)
John the Baptist:
(Matthew 11:11) “Truly, I say to you,
among those born of women there has
risen no one greater than John the
Baptist; yet he who is least in the
kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”
HE ADVENT of John the Baptist is a great figure in regard to the relationship between Fathers and their children, for through our baptism, we are priest, prophet, and king, and this needs to hold a special authoritative role in FATHERS, rooted in the love of Christ. May we through the example of the saints becoming “least” (by way of humility), become like this, just as Matthew foretold. John the Baptist spoke as one who had authority (the spirit of authority was in him), but made it clear he was not the one, and pointed to He who was. Through his preaching and ministry (baptism, personal example, and spoken word), he gave the children of Israel the capacity to receive the love of Christ.
His Lineage • John the Baptist was from a priestly lineage. His father, Zechariah, was a priest of the division of Abijah, and his mother, Elizabeth, was also a descendant of Aaron (Luke 1:5). This makes John the Baptist a descendant of the priestly tribe of Levi. His Role: John the Baptist’s role was as a prophet and forerunner of the Messiah, preparing the way for Jesus’ ministry through his preaching and baptism of repentance. Our lineage & role? Quite similar, by virtue of our Baptism.
Crucial Balance • The coming of John the Baptist, (in the spirit and power of Elijah) is the beginning of Christ establishing the heart of God turned toward the Son, and the Son to the Father, and is the very example of how fathers can and should achieve a harmony between the love he ought to show toward his children (i.e. the turning of his heart toward them) and the holding of authority in his family. Not only are both possible, but necessary, for if the balance should be off, the children will either lack their “bucket” or not have the capacity to receive what goes into it. Both Origen and Augustine offer us light into this.
Origen • First, consider Origen’s link made between the person of Elijah and John the Baptist, most especially in regard to the spirit in which he (John) came:
“But do not marvel in regard to what is said about Elijah, if, just as something strange happened to him different from all the saints who are recorded, in respect of his having been caught up by a whirlwind into heaven, so his spirit had something of choice excellence, so that not only did it rest on Elisha, but also descended along with John at his birth; and that John, separately, “was filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother’s womb,” and separately, “came before Christ in the spirit and power of Elijah.” For it is possible for several spirits not only worse, but also better, to be in the same man. David accordingly asks to be established by a free spirit, and that a right spirit be renewed in his inward parts. But if, in order that the Saviour may impart to us of “the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and reverence,” he was filled also with the spirit of the fear of the Lord; it is possible also that these several good spirits may be conceived as being in the same person. And this also we have brought forward, because of John having come before Christ “in the spirit and power of Elijah,” in order that the saying, “Elijah has already come,” may be referred to the spirit of Elijah that was in John; as also the three disciples who had gone up with Him understood that He spake to them about John the Baptist.” [Origen, Commentary on Matthew, Book XII]
Saint Augustine • With that, now, consider Augustine and his commentary in “City of God” on this fulfillment of the law in love, as properly understood through Malachi 4:6:
“After admonishing them to give heed to the law of Moses, as he foresaw that for a long time to come they would not understand it spiritually and rightly, he went on to say, “And, behold, I will send to you Elias the Tishbite before the great and signal day of the Lord come: and he shall turn the heart of the father to the son, and the heart of a man to his next of kin, lest I come and utterly smite the earth.” It is a familiar theme in the conversation and heart of the faithful, that in the last days before the judgment the Jews shall believe in the true Christ, that is, our Christ, by means of this great and admirable prophet Elias who shall expound the law to them. […] Another and a preferable sense can be found in the words of the Septuagint translators, who have translated Scripture with an eye to prophecy, the sense, viz., that Elias shall turn the heart of God the Father to the Son, not certainly as if he should bring about this love of the Father for the Son, but meaning that he should make it known, and that the Jews also, who had previously hated, should then love the Son who is our Christ. For so far as regards the Jews, God has His heart turned away from our Christ, this being their conception about God and Christ. But in their case the heart of God shall be turned to the Son when they themselves shall turn in heart, and learn the love of the Father towards the Son. The words following, “and the heart of a man to his next of kin,”—that is, Elias shall also turn the heart of a man to his next of kin,—how can we understand this better than as the heart of a man to the man Christ? For though in the form of God He is our God, yet, taking the form of a servant, He condescended to become also our next of kin. It is this, then, which Elias will do, “lest,” he says, “I come and smite the earth utterly.” [City of God, chapter 29]
Elijah did do this for (as Origen expounded) it was John who came in the spirit and power of Elijah. It is the coming of Christ—beginning with the coming of John the Baptist—who brought with him both spirit and power, love and authority. Living in this gift is our role as fathers.
The Father’s Vocation • Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we too live in this love and by this authority. We, as he, have a calling as fathers to carry with us both spirit and power—love and authority—lest the result be a fatherless child, which is destructive to the core of our society, the domestic church, as spoken of by Pope Saint John Paul II in Familiaris Consortio (22 November 1981). God our Father did not leave us as orphans. We should also not leave our children as orphans. Rather, let us be on our way in unity with Christ, for as it says in Romans, “The night is far spent. The day is at hand.”
May John the Baptist pray for us as fathers.
You just read Adam Raha’s first article for CCW.
