By Katie Patrick
The Monday after we left the hospital without our daughter, my husband Ryan and I went to evening Mass at the Cathedral of the Risen Christ in Lincoln. When Mass ended, Father Wylie came straight to our pew. He sat quietly beside us and began to pray.
Imogen’s unexpected death never caused me to question my faith, but it was one of the darkest moments of my life. Father Wylie’s presence that evening—his prayers, his quiet hope, his reminder of our enduring love for Imogen—shaped how I learned to carry both grief and motherhood in the days that followed. “She made you parents, and you will be her parents forever,” he said. It was in those moments that I understood something deeper about spiritual fatherhood.
I reflected on our wedding years before. Moments after Ryan and I walked down the aisle and into Kaczmarek Hall at St. Teresa Church in Lincoln, Father Fulton was the first to congratulate us. “Congratulations, kids!” he said. Alongside Father Meysenburg, who prepared us for marriage, and other concelebrating priests who shaped our lives, he fully shared in our happiness.
In my senior year of high school, two classmates became mothers. I recall before the bell rang one afternoon during religion class, they were showing photos of their little ones to each other and to Father Gyhra, our teacher. As an impressionable teenager trying to make sense of the world, I never forgot the tenderness with which he recognized their motherhood.
Other moments that I recall are the ordinary ones around the family dinner table with Father Leo Seiker, a friend of my parents. Growing up in a home that always welcomed priests for family celebrations and “just because” taught me not only the centrality of our Catholic faith, but that our faith infuses all aspects of our daily life, especially the ordinary ones where there was nothing extraordinary—just hopefully enough meatloaf to go around the table. Today, visiting with Father Seiker at pro-life events throughout the year is a constant reminder of his role in my youth and his friendship with my family.
El Camino—if you ever have the chance to walk it, please do. And if you can experience this pilgrimage alongside a priest, even better. In 2017, I walked the Camino de Santiago across Spain with my younger brother, now Father Hile, Father Rodriguez, and several seminarians. As one of the oldest pilgrims in the group, I spent much of the month tending blisters, passing out Tylenol, and reminding exhausted young men to drink water. Yet in return, I received far more than I gave: daily Mass, shared prayer, honest conversations, blessings, and the witness of men preparing to become spiritual fathers.
We call these men “Father” partially because they lead and teach us in that masculine, patristic manner that we hopefully have from our own fathers—our dads—imparting wisdom, teaching, and raising us. We are their family, and they are responsible for us and their “children” in so many ways similar to that guy at the head of each of our households.
My own father, Dan, instilled in me integrity, compassion, forgiveness, and perseverance. There are countless memories of this, but one that stands out was a summer evening in junior high when a particular group of girls left me out of their basketball game. In retrospect, it was no doubt because my athletic abilities were and always will be rather limited, but all the same—it hurt. As I cried on the front step of our house, he reminded me of my strengths and attributes. He reminded me of how much he loved me and of all the blessings in my life. At that age, it’s often not the words you remember but the feeling that you are loved.
As Father’s Day approaches, I find myself grateful not only for my own father, but for the priests who have guided, comforted, and rejoiced with me. A priest’s spiritual fatherhood is often revealed not primarily in grand gestures, but in faithful presence during the defining moments of human life — grief, marriage, friendship, celebration, and pilgrimage. May God bless all of our priests — and our dads — this Father’s Day!
