THE CONCEPT OF PARENTHOOD 

God gave humans, animals, and birds a motive for Parenthood. A father loves his son, cares for him, and defends him, willing to sacrifice everything for him, even his life. He looks at him as an extension of his own life. 

God put this motive in human life in varying degrees, to grow and mature day by day. No wonder we see a little girl playing a game where she gets to be a mother and cares for her doll as her daughter. 

This motive grows in one direction or another, as dictated by the individual’s culture and background. He or she grows to be a father or a mother; loving or harsh, spoiling, taunting or moderate, encouraging his children or discouraging them or ignoring their affairs, commanding, or nice and compassionate, or someone who does not care! 

For that reason, God the Lover of Mankind offers us His paternity, and the Church declares to us her motherhood. Through them, we draw genuine and true parenthood skills; we get to understand it, practice it, even if we did not have children according to the flesh. 

How plentiful is God assurance for us! He Himself announced that (Matthew 6:31-32; 7:10-11; Luke 12:32), and through his prophets and apostles (Isaiah 63:16; 64:8), the true paternity of God is declared towards us through our union with Him. 

This paternity is enjoyed by any faithful couple through their union with God in Christ Jesus, and that surpasses natural parenthood. Their children feel it at a very young age, so they grow to experience the warm love of their parents at a heavenly level. 

The main feature of a Christian house is true love. The child tastes it from his birth, and as St. Jerome said when he guided a mother on how to raise her daughter: 

• She will hug her mom, and relatives will kiss her. 

• Her grandfather will play with her, and she will smile at her father. All family members will love and adore her. 

You can tell her about her grandfather and aunt, but she also needs to know which army she belongs to. As a spiritual solider against sin, she also needs to know who her true leader is. It is the Lord Jesus Christ,the One who invited her to serve under his leadership. 

St. Jerome 

This love does not stem from the mere emotion of parenthood, but through faith in God. “God is love.” The children get attracted to the Lord through their parents; they get to understand the caring fatherhood of God and worship in its life-giving spirit. Thus, the Christian home gets to be the living link for the children with the Lord, their God. 

On the contrary, when a child is deprived from the real paternity or maternity on the faithful level, his parents stand like a stumbling block in his understanding of “life with the Lord,” and his acceptance of the Heavenly Paternity or the Motherhood of the Church. 

When the earthly fathers – despite personal weaknesses – live with the Spirit of the Lord and his Church, united with God, they provide for their children deep vivid picture of the Divine Paternity that penetrates deep into their hearts. 

Father Tadros Y. Malaty, Family Love (SOUTH BRUNSWICK, NJ: Queen Mary & Prince Tadros Coptic Orthodox Church).