All in the Family
by Leon J. Suprenant, Jr.

I have an unusual family background. My late father and his wife had eleven children. In the 1950s, his wife died of cancer, and so my dad left his sporting goods store in Kankakee, Illinois and moved most of the family to Southern California. Not too long after that, he met and married my mother.

A decade earlier, my mom’s husband had been killed in World War II, leaving her with two babies.

I am the only child of my parents’ marriage. Even so, I’m very much the product of a large family. I don’t even try anymore to stay on top of the number of nephews, nieces, great-nephews, and great-nieces I have, because they’re so numerous and dispersed.

From time to time growing up I was asked, "How many brothers and sisters do you have?" I would innocently respond that I was the youngest of fourteen children. However, when the questioner learned more of the details of my family history, he would inevitably ask the follow up question: "So how many real brothers and sisters do you have?"

Being fairly good with numbers back then, I did the math. Since I had seven half-sisters and six half-brothers, I responded, "Six and a half."

As I grew older, these questions began to bother me. Perhaps they reminded me of the disturbing reality that the two step-families that my mom and dad brought together were never fully integrated into one family. These questions also revealed the emphasis our society puts on biological paternity and maternity apart from the realities and responsibilities of family life. To all my siblings—whom I love—I am merely a half-brother. The term is biologically accurate, but being a "half" never quite sat well with me.

It’s A Girl!

Many years later, I was doubly blessed. I married a wonderful woman who already had a daughter named Brenda. I didn’t want to force the situation, but I truly desired to adopt Brenda and make her in every sense my daughter. How thrilled I was when she came to me and told me she’d like to be adopted.

We went through the adoption process together, and when our court date arrived, it was time to celebrate. We had a party for friends and family. We had a cake that said, "It’s a girl!" and Brenda was handing everyone her autograph bearing her new (and difficult to spell) last name.

One interesting aspect of the adoption process—even in the case of a step-parent adoption—is that the government issues a new birth certificate, identifying the adoptive parent as the "real" father or mother. I used to tease Brenda about her now being French-Canadian (my nationality). But I never refer to her as my step-daughter.

Order in the Court

As an attorney, I handled Brenda’s adoption proceeding myself. While family law was not my area of practice or expertise, I ended up handling other adoptions on occasion, usually step-parent adoptions.

Working with adoptions was a singularly joyous experience for me, even more so because it was so different from the usual experience of our legal system. Judges are typically asked to referee disputes that reflect our sinfulness, frailty, and brokenness (cf. Catechism, no. 1264), knowing full well that awarding one party some money or giving another party jail time—while just on one level—isn’t going to undo the effects of original sin.

Adoptions are different. Here I’m not talking about the nasty controversies that arise (and tend to get reported in the media) when there are conflicting claims, which bring other issues into play. Where all sides consent to the adoption, the atmosphere in the courtroom is downright jovial. The child gets to sit on the judge’s desk. The judge smiles and even laughs. The family gets someone to take photos of the event.

The bottom line is that everyone senses that there’s something fundamentally good and restorative happening. In an age of "absent fathers" and radical feminism, here’s a family (i.e., husband and wife) that’s willing to accept the responsibilities of parenthood.

We’re All Adopted

Our experience of human family life provides us glimpses of God’s fatherhood. After all, God’s fatherhood is the source of fatherhood and motherhood within the family (cf. Catechism, no. 2214). Yet, even in the most faithful of families, the reflection of God’s perfect, familial love is imperfect. And in our society, the loss of a sense of the divine and sacred has gone hand in hand with the loss of an authentic sense of family, so that even fundamental truths such as the reality of marriage as a lifelong, monogamous bond between a man and woman are called into question. This situation has brought much confusion and pain in family relationships, and has made it more difficult to approach God as "Father."

Yet, if we are to really come to know and love God, we must come to grips with the fact that God is Our Father, and we are His children by adoption. St. Paul teaches us:

But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" (Gal. 4:4-6; cf. Rom. 8:14-17).

Our status as God’s children is a profound mystery that we should meditate on frequently. I’d like to touch upon four aspects of this truth.

It’s Real

St. John writes: "See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are" (1 Jn. 3:1). In fact, my status as God’s child is even more real than my status as the child of Leon Sr. and Eileen, and reflects a restoration of what God intended from the beginning, when He created us in His image. Our status as God’s children through faith and Baptism is not only a present reality, for we know that God is eternally faithful and trustworthy. He will never leave us abandoned or orphaned (cf. Is. 49:15).

It’s Not Second-Class

Being God’s children "by adoption" doesn’t cheapen the wonderful, undeserved gift we received at Baptism. Nor is our status as God’s children merely a legal fiction.

Rather, the term "adoption" reflects the fact that through grace we are able to participate in the very life of God. If we were "gods" in our own right, we wouldn’t need to be adopted. If God were distant and uninvolved with us, we would not truly be His children. The truth is that through Christ God is calling all of us to Himself. The Catechism (no. 1997) teaches us that grace "introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life: by Baptism the Christian participates in the grace of Christ, the Head of his Body. As an ‘adopted son’ he can henceforth call God ‘Father,’ in union with the only Son. He receives the life of the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the Church."

It’s Ecumenical

God is one and His family the Church is one. St. Cyprian said that one cannot have God as Father without having the Church as Mother. Yet we are painfully aware of the divisions and "divorces" that continue to divide God’s children up to the present.

As members of God’s family, we can’t help but grieve at our lack of full communion with other Christians. Following our Holy Father’s lead, we must make authentic ecumenism a top priority in our prayers and actions. In this regard, I might add that expressions such as "non-Catholics," "separated brethren," and worse still "material heretics," while technically accurate, probably make those to whom such terms apply feel about how I felt about being called only a "half-brother." While avoiding false irenicism, religious indifferentism, and doctrinal fuzziness, we must still emphasize the ecclesial reality that other baptized Christians truly are children of God (cf. Pope John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint, no. 42).

It’s Eternal

Sometimes we might lose sight of the fact that our status as children of God unites us not only with Christians throughout the world, but also, through the communion of saints, with all those who have gone before us in God’s friendship. Our lives on earth anticipate our true "homecoming" in heaven, where we will be with God in the company of His angels and saints for all eternity (cf. Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, no. 51).

St. Joseph, Pray for Us

In this Father’s Day issue, in which we celebrate the gift of fatherhood and encourage human fathers to embrace and faithfully live out our vocations, we turn to St. Joseph, patron of the Universal Church and patron of fathers. He who never had relations with Mary teaches us how to be the best of husbands, and he who was not Jesus’ biological father teaches us how to be the best of fathers.

Dear St. Joseph, this issue is dedicated to you.

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