Editor’s Note: “The Eucharistic Heart of a Father” was presented by Knights of Columbus Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly at the New York State Eucharistic Congress on Saturday in Auriesville, New York. It is reprinted here with permission.

Thank you, Father [Roger] Landry. Good afternoon. Your Excellencies, dear clergy and religious, and faithful pilgrims — it’s a privilege to be with you for this Eucharistic Congress.

l’m grateful to the bishops of New York for organizing this historic pilgrimage, as part of the National Eucharistic Revival.

My topic today is how men, particularly in our roles as husbands and fathers, must find our mission in Jesus Christ, truly present in the Eucharist. I should say at the outset that, while my focus is on men, women have a profound stake in what I will talk about this afternoon.

To put it simply — we are living amid a crisis of fatherhood. The lack of strong, principled, Catholic men is undermining marriages and driving children away from the faith. To be blunt, the family is faltering, and society is feeling the effects. For the sake of our Church and our culture, we must confront and overcome this crisis. The times cry out for Catholic men — for faithful husbands and devoted fathers. And if we hope to raise up a new generation of Christ-centered men, we must renew our love for Christ in the Eucharist.

That’s the purpose of my talk this afternoon. And my goal is to cover three main points.

First, I’ll sketch out the crisis of fatherhood and its consequences for society and the Church. It’s a difficult picture I paint, but we must be honest about the problem.

Second, I’ll look at how the Eucharist is essential to ending this crisis, by giving men the heart of a father.

Third, I’ll show how the community that flows from the Eucharistis key to the Christian life. If we hope to be better husbands and fathers, we need to find strength and support in one another.

This work is very dear to me on a personal level. I am the father of three young girls — and you may have seen them here this morning. Few things matter more to me and my wife, Vanessa, than nourishing and protecting their eternal souls. That’s a tall task in any age, but it’s especially tough these days. Much of modern culture is pushing our children in the wrong direction. Vanessa and I struggle every day to give our girls the tools they need to resist that pressure and push back in a positive and healthy way. In my experience, the only way to succeed is to have the Eucharistic heart of a father. The more we turn to Our Lord in the Eucharist, the more we can teach our children to value their relationship with Christ above anything else the world may offer.

I’m also motivated by my professional role. As Father Landry mentioned, I have the great honor of serving as the leader of the Knights of Columbus, and I know many brother Knights are here today. You may know us as the men who find you a seat at Mass or put on the pancake breakfast at the local parish. But we’re also the men who’ve given a million winter coats to needy children and bring humanitarian relief to our suffering brothers and sisters in war-torn Ukraine. We do all this and more because charity is our first principle. But charity is only one dimension of our larger mission. Above all else, the Knights of Columbus exists to protect the Catholic family — by strengthening Catholic men.

We were founded in 1882 with this mission. And it’s a mission that has remained constant for the last 141 years. And I think it is safe to say that this mission is more important than ever. The challenges facing the family in the 19th century pale in comparison to the challenges we face in the 21st century.

A Crisis of Fatherhood

We can all testify to the modern crisis of fatherhood. We see it everywhere we look — in our society, our communities, and even in our own parishes and families.

At first glance, the situation looks like a crisis of manhood, not just fatherhood. Young men are increasingly isolated, alienated and angry. And recent polls paint a bleak picture of the grim reality that surrounds us. More than a quarter of millennials in the United States say they have no close friends, and 22% say they have no friends at all. Younger generations struggle with depression at a rate that’s at least three times higher than it is for older generations. At least nine out of 10 young men under 24 view pornography at least monthly. And the rates of substance abuse and overdose are skyrocketing — along with suicide.

It has been said that young men are dying “deaths of despair”—and this is true. Despair is perhaps the defining characteristic of the 21st-century man. But its why Christ’s message of hope is needed all the more.

This crisis has been building for a long time. And young men are struggling for many reasons. But one of the most prevalent reasons is a crisis among their fathers. Specifically, what their fathers have done and, even more, what they’ve failed to do.

At this exact moment, at least a quarter of American children are growing up without fathers in their home. That’s more than 18 million young boys and girls. And what’s worse, our country is headed toward the day when more than half of our children live in broken homes. It’s stunning to think that much of the next generation may never really know their father. But they aren’t the only ones suffering.

Even children who have both parents in the home often have fathers who fail to be fully present to them.

Let me be clear. I am not talking about mere distraction. We’ve all seen — or even been — the dad who is zoned out with his nose buried in his iPhone while his kids are trying to get his attention. And I must admit — I fall into that trap all the time. And when I’m distracted, my children let me know it. My daughter Caroline will actually grab my face and literally turn it to hers. She forces me to focus my attention where it belongs. Like every father, I can do better at being present to my kids.

But in the context of the crisis of fatherhood, I’m talking about something much more serious than mere distraction. I’m referring to the many fathers who physically live with their children but are emotionally absent. They don’t just lose focus every now and again. Rather, they don’t show love on a daily basis. There are so many young people who, more than anything, want to hear the words, “I love you!” from their dad. But they don’t. And in many families, anger has replaced love as the dominant emotion.

The consequences could hardly be more clear, or more devastating. When fathers are absent or fall short, their children struggle. A negligent father is a major cause of increased poverty, crime, substance abuse and so many other heartbreaking outcomes. And as more families break apart, and more children grow up without a father in the home, the cycle repeats itself. I’m sorry to paint such a grim picture, but the fact is that these problems will not self-correct. On our present trajectory, they’re set to get worse.

So the collapse of the family demands our attention. Why is this happening? What’s to blame? And, most of all, what can we do about it?

To find the answer, we must confront a common preconceived notion. Going back decades, we’ve typically assumed that the family’s decline is the direct result of declining faith. According to this argument, when people lose sight of God and his vision for humanity, the family will inevitably fall apart. This explanation is true to an extent. When you believe in Christ, you bring Christ-centered values into your family.

But the opposite is also true. Sometimes the splintering of the family is the cause of the children’s loss of faith. No one has described it better than Mary Eberstadt in her book How the West Really Lost God. She demonstrates that when the family breaks down, our relationship with God breaks with it. When a father fails to love his wife and raise his children well, he builds barriers to faith within them. He weakens his kids’ ability to know the love of God the Father. And where a dad’s love is unknown or is missing, our children become vulnerable to the lies of the world and the evil one.

Without good fathers and strong families, our children will be

searching for meaning in all the wrong places — from chemical dependency to sexual license. What they desperately need is the community and joy that only come from strong family bonds.

The intimate connection between family and faith may be surprising to many people. But it shouldn’t be. The family is at the heart of our faith. It’s essential to our understanding of God. Think about the language we use as Catholics. God is our Father; Christ is his Son. The most important event in all of history — the Incarnation — took place in a family. And Christ himself not only had a mother, Mary, but also an adoptive father, St. Joseph. In the Holy Family, which is an earthly reflection of the Holy Trinity, Our Lord and Savior was raised to human maturity. The Holy Family is the model for all families, showing us the path to holiness by introducing us to both divine and fully human love.

But how can we know the love of our Heavenly Father if we haven’t known the love of our earthly father? How can we follow that path to holiness without a father to point us in the right direction? The fact is, while fathers can’t do it alone, studies show that dads play the single most important role in shaping their children’s long-term beliefs.

Without our example as Christian fathers, our sons and daughters are far less likely to meet Christ. If they don’t see the faith, they won’t keep the faith. And it pains me to say that a great many of our children are proving the point. An estimated 85% of Catholic youth leave the Church in their college years. Of course, we can’t attribute all of that to the failure of fathers. Secularism also plays a huge role, with modern culture often undoing the good work of many Catholic parents. But we can’t deny that many Catholic fathers are falling short.

For my part, there are many areas where I need to improve. And I know most Catholic fathers I know feel the same.

The good news is: We can all do better. The evidence shows that when a father believes in God and lives out his faith, his children are 10 times more likely to be committed Catholics as adults. It turns out that a living faith inspires. And I speak from my own experience. My own father wasn’t perfect, and he was not an emotive man, but he was totally committed to his faith and his family. He reflected the love of God the Father in how he loved my mom, my brothers and sisters and me. I’m grateful every day for his example.

But I know I still have work to do. And the same is true for every father. The great challenge of our time is getting men to be good fathers — the kind of fathers who believe in Christ and raise their children in the faith. If we do that, we’ll ensure a brighter future for our Church, while dramatically improving the health of our society — one family at a time.

The truth is: Every man is called to be a father. For a vast majority of us, this calling is to the natural kind of fatherhood that comes from getting married and starting a family. For some, it’s a calling to be a spiritual father through the priesthood or consecrated life. But whatever our state of life, our model must be Christ. He is the very image of God, and he tells us, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Jesus is the one who guided the apostles. He called the women he met “daughters.”

And as his disciples, we, as men, must imitate him as we lead our families, love our wives, and raise our children.

I admit that this can seem daunting. How can we — mere mortals — imitate the Son of God made man? There is only one way. To be like Christ, we need more than good intentions. We need Christ himself — transforming us through the Eucharist. The Eucharist will help us become true fathers.

This is the crux of my message today. The only way to end the crisis of fatherhood is to believe in Jesus and to meet him in the Eucharist. In the Mass, we find the source of our strength. In the Eucharist, Christ gives us the heart of a father, by connecting us to the heart of his Father. God’s heart is completely present in the Blessed Sacrament. It’s too great a mystery to fully describe in human words. And yet, in the Mass, we get a glimpse. The Eucharist shows us who we must be and what we must do. For men and for fathers, in particular, there are four main points to draw out.

I’ll explore each of these in a bit, but here they are in brief:

First, we need to recognize our sonship. We are all taught fatherhood by being fathered ourselves, and, in the Mass, we encounter God as our personal Father. The better we understand who we are as his sons, the better fathers we will be to our own children.

Second, we need to be teachable. In the Mass, God instructs us, forgives us, and shows us how to live the faith. If we are open to the Father’s guidance, we will more effectively guide our own children so they can embrace a living faith of their own.

Third, we need to embody sacrificial love. In the Mass, God the Father offers himself to his children in the form of his Son. We must do the same as human fathers, giving all that we have for the sake of our children.

Fourth and finally: We must embrace our mission. Christ has called us to “go and make disciples of all nations” — starting with our own families and children. This isn’t just our mission; it’s the mission that God himself gave his Son. Jesus commands us to take up this mission. In the Mass, in the Eucharist, we receive the strength we need to succeed.

All these lessons are found in the Mass, in a powerful, personal and accessible way. The Mass is not simply some devotional exercise or spiritual practice. It’s not merely a duty that we must fulfill on a weekly basis. The Mass is a direct encounter with our Creator, giving shape to our whole being, while telling us how we should live and how we should love. More than anything else, the Mass — and the reality of Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist — enables us to make the heart of the Father our own.

The Heart of a Father

The first lesson we learn in the Mass is our own sonship. As men, and as fathers, we must acknowledge and accept this truth of our existence. We were not created to be autonomous individuals, divorced from our relationships and obligations to others. Rather, God created us to do his will, as his sons. So to become the fathers God wants us to be, we must recognize our Father in heaven.

The Mass makes this clear from the very beginning. The liturgy is replete with language calling out to God as Father.

We are sons and daughters — adopted children of God himself. That is who and what we are. And the rest of the Mass reinforces this reality. We learn in the Mass that God saved us, out of love for us. We see that he still loves and cares for us, as only a Father can. We receive his forgiveness for our transgressions, for our Father shows infinite mercy. And we are told that he has destined us for an “everlasting inheritance” (Collect, 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time). In our Father’s mansion, there are many rooms, and each of them is made for each of us.

The question, of course, is: How do we gain that inheritance? How do we attain that room in the Father’s mansion, which God has prepared for us? The answer is the Eucharist.

We are the Father’s adopted children, yet Christ our Lord is the very son of God. He is therefore our best guide to what sonship really looks like. Jesus said: “I came not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me” (John 6:38). That is the duty of a son — to do as his father commands. And that is what we must do, as sons of the Father. Not out of fear; not merely out of duty; but out of trust and out of love. A father knows what’s best for his children, and our Heavenly Father wants nothing more than what’s best for us — our true and authentic happiness.

The second lesson we learn in the Mass is teachability. Yes, we are sons of God the Father. Yes, he has a plan for us. And, yes, he is the source of all goodness, truth and beauty. But all of that is lost to us if we aren’t open to his instruction. Like good children, we must listen to our Father and learn from him because he has so much knowledge and wisdom to share with us. And our primary schoolroom is the Mass.

At every Mass, we listen closely to the word of God. That’s where we hear our Father encouraging, correcting and instructing us. We hear the commandments of the Lord. We see Jesus modeling how we should act and how we should think. As St. Paul tells us in his Letter to the Romans, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (12:2).

The Mass teaches us the difference between right and wrong. And it shows how a father disciplines his children when they stray. The stories of the Old Testament, the parables of the New Testament — they teach us what happens when we fall short of God’s expectations. In the Mass, we learn the nature of forgiveness and mercy. We have all sinned and fallen short, and yet his grace can lift us back up. The Mass shows us the redeeming love of the Father — a love that we are called to make our own. As Christ commands us, “Love one another, as I have loved you” (John 13:34).

Sadly, too many men today are not open to this message. They deliberately close themselves off from God’s instruction. But we desperately need his guidance if we are to thrive. And we especially need the teaching of our Heavenly Father if we are to flourish as fathers ourselves. Without it, we have little chance of keeping our children headed in the right direction. Only by learning about God’s mercy and love for us, can we show mercy and love to our own children.

The Mass is where we learn these lessons. It paves the way for our own maturity — to be good fathers ourselves. I try to remember this every time I catch myself drifting during the readings. No matter how many times I hear it, the word of God is still full of power and will lead to a deeper conversion of my own heart if I am open to it. As we hear in Hebrews, “The word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword” (4:12). As men, as fathers, we need that guidance, so we can instruct our families and our children.

The third lesson that we need as Fathers is sacrificial love. It’s the very heart of the Mass — the essence of the Eucharist. Our Father made the ultimate sacrifice — his only Son — out of love for us, a sacrifice in which Jesus himself, as the image of the Father, wholeheartedly shared. As human fathers, we must sacrifice out of love for our children, to give our body, our blood, our time, our prayers, and all we are and have, even to the point of death.

The Mass is centered on this self-giving love. That’s why we call it the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, we hear the love of our Father in heaven. And in the reliving of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection, we see that God will pay the ultimate price on our behalf. By sacrificing his Son, God the Father makes his love manifest in our world. He saves us, his children, because we cannot save ourselves.

One of the great lies of our time is that men don’t need to sacrifice — that we don’t need to love others more than ourselves. In fact, modern society explicitly tells men to put themselves ahead of others. According to this way of thinking, Jesus is the opposite of manly. He was silent before Herod. He was meek before Pilate. And he accepted vicious insults and physical abuse, without complaint, leading to his death on the cross. How can Christ be a model of strength when he refused to use his strength?

This understanding of Christ is exactly backward. What the world calls weakness is actually the ultimate strength. Christ could have ended his suffering by calling down a legion of angels to save him and smite his enemies. That would have been the easy road for the Son of God. But he took the harder path — the path his Father had laid out for him. He suffered willingly. And he showed us that giving one’s life for others — that sacrifice is the greatest gift one human being can offer to another. His earthly suffering opened the path to our eternal salvation. His love makes it possible for us to love.

Modern society may call this a failure. People may say it’s better to fight. But what they don’t see is that Christ did fight, and, through his sacrifice, he won. If his example isn’t enough, we have the testimony of two millennia of Christian martyrs. To use the words of St. John Henry Newman, their sacrificial love “subdued the world.” And so can ours. We simply need to embrace this sign of contradiction that society rejects. We need men who recognize that the best way to fight is to lay down our lives.

As Christians, we know that every human being is born into a battle. The devil prowls about the world, seeking the ruin of souls — your soul and mine — and especially our children’s. God wants to protect us, and from the very beginning of time, he has waged a war on our behalf. We share completely in his ultimate victory. Yet it’s also the case that we share in the battle while here on earth. The devil is still active, attempting to corrupt our children. The only thing that can defeat him is the love of God. And we find that love in the Eucharist.

At every Mass, we put ourselves on the altar with Christ; we are invited to share in his sacrifice. And in giving our lives to him, we learn to give our lives to those around us, especially our families and our children. Their salvation is more precious to us than anything else. Our task is to lay down our lives for them, in imitation of Christ. And in doing so, we call down grace upon them. And isn’t that what they need, more than anything else: grace?

For that matter, isn’t that what every family needs? Husbands who sacrifice for their wives and fathers who sacrifice for their children? The only way to learn how to do this is through a direct encounter with our Father in heaven, through his Son, Jesus Christ. The Eucharist that we consume actually consumes us, filling us with divine love. There is no more important thing for a child to get — or a father to give — than Christlike sacrificial love.

This brings me to the last lesson: The necessity of taking up the mission Jesus has given to us. At the end of Mass, we often hear: “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord,” or “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.”

This familiar call to action couldn’t be more radical. The modern world is so big and so complex that people now tend to feel small and insignificant. You may think you’re just one person, making your way through a world of 8 billion. It may seem that huge forces are at work — forces that you can neither change nor challenge. If this is the case, then your actions don’t really matter. Even our best efforts will never be enough.

But this way of thinking couldn’t be more wrong. Of course, it’s true that huge forces are at work. But God is bigger than all of them. And as the Scriptures and Church history make clear, God works through his creation. In other words, He works through us. And God has given us the capacity to achieve great things, if only we rely on him.

That’s why the Mass ends by calling our minds back to the Great Commission in the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus is saying to us: You can make a difference. He is saying: You can make a difference that no one else can. He is saying that we have the power to “go and make disciples of all nations.” He is saying the place to start is by making disciples of our families — and especially our children.

What gives us the power to fulfill this call and shape our world? The answer is the Eucharist. In the bread and wine that are totally changed into his Body and Blood, Christ offers himself for the healing and redemption of the world. There is no other definitive hope, except in him. And as people who have become like Christ by consuming the Eucharist, we are empowered to offer this hope to those around us, starting with our spouses and children.

This calling is truly great. And it’s made all the more powerful by the fact that Christ himself involves us in his work. St. John Henry Newman once expressed this beautifully in meditations he wrote for Eucharistic adoration. Here’s how he put it [and I quote]:

“God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another… Somehow, I am necessary for His purposes… I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work.”

This applies to all of us — men and women alike. And in the context of fathers, it’s very profound. God made us for a specific mission — to be fruitful and multiply, passing on the faith. It’s a great task that only we can fulfill. And I mean this in the most personal sense. No one except me can be the best father to my three daughters. And I cannot be a father in the same way to someone else’s children. I must pour myself into the particular mission God has given to me. It’s why he has placed me on this earth.

The same is true for every man and every father. We must love the Lord so that we show our children how to love him, too. And we must imitate Christ, as Paul tells us. Why? Because then our children — who imitate us — will learn to imitate Christ. This is how we make disciples. This is how we fulfill our mission, so that when we finally meet our Father in heaven, He will say to us, “Well done, my good and faithful servant” (Mattew 25:21).

We all long to hear those words. And to ensure that we do, we should embrace the mission to fatherhood I’ve laid out today. Every man is capable of having the heart of a father.

And now I want to speak directly to every man here. I want to leave you with a message of hope — a message of redemption.

Many of you may be wondering how — or even whether — you can be the man God wants you to be. You may be thinking: “I didn’t have the best father, so how can I be a good father?” You may assume your sins are too many or your struggles too great. I hear these sentiments quite often from Catholic men. I’ve even heard them from priests and seminarians. And if any of these thoughts are in your head, please banish them — right now.

Whoever you are, and whatever you’ve been through, God can restore you to spiritual health. It doesn’t matter what kind of father you had — the heart of God the Father is enough. It’s everything you need. He can teach us — all of us — what we never had or only partially learned. We simply have to let him, starting with the Body and Blood of his Son in the Eucharist.

I know countless men who can testify to God’s healing power. None would say that this process is easy. None would say the sins of their fathers haven’t left marks. None would deny that they don’t struggle with sins of their own. Yet all of them — all of them — have experienced the healing that comes from Christ. They exude joy and confidence and true virtue. They’ve become — and are becoming — the husbands, fathers and Catholic men that God created them to be.

The reason is simple: These men are devoted to the Mass. They intentionally participate in the Eucharist — in the source and summit of the Christian life. But the men I’m speaking of don’t stop there. When the Mass is over, they purposely work to draw closer to Christ in a community of like-minded, faithful men. They recognize that to be good fathers, they don’t just need their Father in heaven; they also need good brothers here on earth. They need men who support and strengthen them, as they strive to fulfill their mission.

And so, this afternoon, I want to leave you with one more piece of advice, drawn from my own experience. Don’t try to do this alone. All of us were made with a nature and a need for community. Scripture tells us that “a threefold cord is not easily broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12), and that “iron sharpens iron, as one man sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17). We make each other better when we unite as brothers in Christian friendship.

We’re living in a time of endless moral traps and constant barriers to family life. If we hope to overcome those obstacles, we must do so together. Christ himself formed a band of men to carry out his mission. The apostles didn’t choose one another, but they certainly needed one another. And so do we.

For my part, I promise that the Knights of Columbus will be that place of Catholic brotherhood. We are redoubling our commitment to helping Catholic men deepen their faith, while building bonds of friendship. To that end, we recently started a project that’s completely focused on helping men grow as Catholic husbands and fathers. We’re calling it Cor, spelled C-O-R, which is Latin for “heart.”

We aren’t the only ones who provide such community. I sincerely hope you can find it in the Knights of Columbus. But even if you look elsewhere, the key thing is to find it somewhere. Every Catholic man needs other Catholic men. That’s where we find the strength and courage to live out our mission. That’s where the mysteries of the Mass are reinforced, until they ultimately come to define our lives.

To all the men who are here today or watching from afar: Please know that I’m walking the same road with you. I’m trying to love my Eternal Father and to be a good earthly father. I’m learning God’s mercy, justice and truth, so that I can share those qualities with my own family. I’m striving to make Christ’s sacrificial love my own, so I can lay down my life for the sake of my wife and our daughters.

I can’t claim to do all these things perfectly. You can ask my wife, Vanessa, who’s sitting right over there. She will attest to that. But I do know that, in the Eucharist and within community, I can yet become the man God wants me to be — not through any power of my own, but through his power — in the Eucharist. I can imitate Christ because I am filled with Christ. I can love my wife and daughters with the heart of a father because I have experienced the heart of our Heavenly Father. He, and he alone, gives me the grace to love as he loves.

What is true for me is true for all men. St. John Paul II, whose feast we will celebrate tomorrow, once said the Eucharist was “the secret of [his] day.” It should equally be the secret to our day — and to ending the crisis of fatherhood. We cannot understate the challenges we face. Yet we cannot overstate the power of the Eucharist. Yes, the crisis of fatherhood is big and getting bigger, but Christ in the Eucharist is so much more powerful. Only he can save our families and society. And all we need to do, as men and as fathers, is say “Yes” to our Heavenly Father and make his heart our own.

Thank you.