On Sunday, we celebrate men who carry the burden of fatherhood.

But today, let us mourn over the men who let that burden drop and over the countless empty, aching spaces they leave when they go.

Let us mourn over men who were trusted and did not live up to trust. Who were needed and walked away from the needs of their own flesh and blood.

Let us mourn over men who never learned to face the shard of God in themselves, who fled from their own divinity.

It is not easy to be a father. To help build order without becoming a tyrant. To feel your imperfections against duty like scrapes against salt. To reach out to your wife and children when you yourself feel judged and alone.

It is not easy to be a father. To see your time not as property, but as a stewardship. To teach your own desires patience while teaching others persistence. To resist resentment in its thousand insistent forms.

Is there any father who’s never longed for an escape? Who hasn’t been tempted to slide out from under this weight—through blame or anger, through intoxicants or pornography, through emotional withdrawal in his home or overinvestment in his work?

What is the difference between a man still struggling to stand by his family and a man who has walked away?

Let us mourn over men whose grips grew weak when troubles came, over men who never chose firm holds to cling to when they still had that chance.

Let us mourn for the wrong they did at their departure, and for the good they cannot do in their absence. For the example they set to other fathers. For the strength they sap from the words of every human promise.

On Sunday, we celebrate men who carry the burden of fatherhood.

So pray for me in my troubles and my weaknesses. May Christ’s bread sustain me in my grace-reliant work.