Happy Father’s Day!

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you.” -Exodus 20:12

In the 4th Commandment, God clearly recognizes that honor is owed equally to both parents. Often, secular society takes a while to catch onto God’s truths. In the case of Father’s Day, it took more than 50 years. It began in 1909 while Sonora Smart Dodd listened to a Mother’s Day sermon. Immediately, she thought her father, a Civil War veteran who raised 6 children alone after their mother died, should be similarly honored. She quickly secured backing from local ministers and the YMCA and, in 1910, the city of Spokane celebrated the first Father’s Day.

Dodd then embarked on a campaign to make Father’s Day a national complement to Mother’s Day. Over the next half century, she lobbied tirelessly. In 1916, President Wilson, who a year earlier made Mother’s Day a national holiday, urged Congress to do the same for Father’s Day. They refused. President Coolidge urged states to establish state holidays in 1924, but refused to issue a Presidential proclamation on the matter. Numerous bills in the decades following failed to gain enough Congressional support. President Johnson signed an Executive Order designating the third Sunday of June 1966 as Father’s Day, the first national celebration, but Congress once again refused to make it permanent. Finally, in 1972, President Nixon bypassed Congress, issuing an Executive Order making Father’s Day permanent.

The Knights are strong advocates for fathers. Programs like Cor enable men to strengthen their faith, learn how to be an example of faith in the world and share how to instill that faith in their children. Through prayer cards distributed on Holy Family Sunday, we ask fathers to emulate St. Joseph as head, protector and provider for their families. And today, we honor them with Father’s Day pies.

Dad, thank you for all you do for us! Have a blessed Father’s Day!