Father knows rest: choosing presence over busyness

If I could bottle the feeling of being a father, it would be the sight of my three-year-old son as I pull into the driveway after a long work day. Rain, hail or shine, he often waits at the lighted window, peering through the dark in anticipation of my car pulling up.

As beautiful as they are, these moments are often bittersweet. I know, as do all fathers, that they are fleeting. ‘They grow up quickly’ is a phrase I hate to hear but only because it is so true. Sadly, with the pressures of work and life, the people who deserve our time the most—our families—are often left standing at the window with only the remnants of the day left.

It is a struggle that I am sure many dads sympathise with, and one that is all too common in a world beset by cost-of-living pressures and hellbent on busyness. In the constant pursuit of productivity, it seems that it is not just work–life balance that we have lost but something more fundamental: a healthy conception of what work is meant to be.

Finding the right purpose

We live in a suffocatingly ‘busy’ world. Despite many, including myself, finding more ‘flexibility’ in our jobs post-pandemic, the boundaries that once clearly divided home and workplace have been irrevocably blurred. Work is now only a laptop open away, and even when we do ‘rest’, there is a constant temptation to consume information and entertainment instead of being present with our families.

‘They grow up quickly’ is a phrase I hate to hear but only because it is so true.

Pope Francis pointedly challenged Catholics on this topic in a homily in 2016 when he said, ‘We are constantly busy and so we do not have the time to listen. I would like to ask each one of you to answer in your heart: You, husband, do you have time to listen to your wife? You, wife, do you have time to listen to your husband? You, parents, do you have time, time to spend to listen to your children, or your grandparents, the elderly? … Listen. I ask you to learn to listen and dedicate more time to this. In the capacity to listen is the root of peace.’

As fathers, how do we strip this need to be ‘busy’ from our lives, and how do we redirect work to its proper, God-given purpose? One could do worse than to look to St Thomas Aquinas, whose writings have enlightened and informed Catholic teaching for almost a millennium and who, by some accounts, was quite a workaholic.

Aquinas identifies four proper objectives of work, with each increasingly focused on our spiritual flourishing. The first objective is simply to survive and feed ourselves; the second is to reduce idleness and therefore avoid temptation; the third is to purify ourselves spiritually and to conquer evil; and the fourth, most profound purpose of work is to give alms—or, to put it more broadly, to help our neighbour.

Many fathers, including myself, would feel we meet this final objective every day by supporting our families, but I would be lying if I said this worthy objective was not sometimes clouded by my own self-interest. The selfish urges to be wealthier, to gain recognition or to be liked by our colleagues can all muddy our holier motivations.

Despite the challenges of our working lives, our work can and should be a transformative force for good in the world.

Work should help us to move from the shadow of our own self-interest into the light of Christian charity. It is by fulfilling this fourth objective of work that we begin to partake in the creative work of God, which finds its source in his eternal love.

St John Paul II beautifully illustrates this in his 1981 encyclical Laborem exercens, where he writes, in relation to the Book of Genesis, that ‘The word of God’s revelation is profoundly marked by the fundamental truth that man, created in the image of God, shares by his work in the activity of the Creator.’

I find consolation in this message: that despite the challenges of our working lives, our work can and should be a transformative force for good in the world. Whether we are working for the benefit of an organisation, family or community, work done out of love for our neighbour is fulfilling our deeper purpose as children of God.

A call to rest

But when do we switch off? And where do we draw the line so that work can continue to be a means of caring for our families and not a barrier to it? Again, St John Paul II suggests a way forward.

Not only is the loving work of God a model for us, he says, but making time to rest—like God the Father did on the seventh day—is also an integral part of a healthy work life. We ‘ought to imitate God both in working and also in resting, since God himself wished to present his own creative activity under the form of work and rest,’ he writes.

This, I suspect, is the key to breaking the cycle of busyness and to being more present to our families. If we can take the time to rest in an intentional way, with the same dedication and focus that we bring to our professional lives, it would surely help to rebalance our lives and refocus us on the true objective of work.

A prayer for fathers

As we celebrate Father’s Day this Sunday, I hope and pray that all fathers are able to find the time to stop, rest and reflect on the blessings received and the profound purpose of our vocation to love and nurture our spouses and children.

Our days on earth may be fleeting, but keeping eternity in sight, and striving towards selflessness, we can confidently put our trust in God, who longs to bless us with work and rest that is fulfilling, purposeful and beneficial to our families.