Fr. Richard Rohr, a Catholic spiritual writer and Franciscan monk, tells a powerful story about father’s day from his first days in prison ministry; work he would continue for 15 years. He recalls the first time that mothers’ day came around, how the inmates were all eager to write a letter back home to mom.  To help facilitate, Rohr bought boxes and boxes of mothers’ day cards for them to send home.  Mothers’ day passed, and soon Father’s day was on the horizon.  Rohr again bought boxes upon boxes of fathers’ day cards. However, as Father’s day approached, Rohr found he still had boxes and boxes of fathers’ day cards; he couldn’t give them away. Most of the inmates in that prison had no loving father figure to send a card to, which Rohr concluded, was a main cause of how they landed there in the first place. The logic is sadly clear. If your first father was cold, abusive and ended up abandoning you, you would expect any other male in authority to do the same.  With such an upbringing, it would be quite natural to grow up with great anger at the world, and all authority figures. This fatherly neglect also has great consequences for spiritual development. How can a person abandoned by their own father, come to find trust and hope in God the father?