By Clement Harrold

December 4, 2025

Sacred Scripture makes it abundantly clear that God has a unique care and concern for the fatherless. Within the Mosaic Law, the widow and the orphan are repeatedly held up as being especially deserving of society’s support and protection (see Deut 10:18; 14:29; 16:11,14; 24:17,19-21; 26:12-13; 27:19).

In the Book of Exodus, taking advantage of the widow, the orphan, or the foreigner is condemned as one of the sins which cries out to God for vengeance (see Exod 22:21-24; cf. Catechism 1867).

Through the prophets, too, God often expresses His solidarity with the fatherless:

• “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.” (Isa 1:16-17)
• “Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.” (Jer 22:3)
• “Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy each to his brother, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor; and let none of you devise evil against his brother in your heart.” (Zech 7:9-10)
• “Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.” (Mal 3:5)

While the experience of losing one’s father to death or abandonment brings enormous challenges, the Bible promises that these challenges can be overcome through a radical reliance on God’s fatherly care. When Moses is forced to grow up apart from his biological father, God looks after him through a series of miraculous events, ultimately culminating in His calling Moses to lead His people out of Egypt.

For these reasons the psalmist boldly affirms, “For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me up” (27:10). Psalm 68 captures a similar sentiment: “Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation” (v. 5).

In short, the consistent testimony of the Old Testament Scriptures is that God is “the helper of the fatherless” (Psa 10:14) and the mighty one in whom “the orphan finds mercy” (Hos 14:13).

Jesus Christ, the Image of the Father

As Christians, we have the added privilege of knowing that these truths take on a whole new resonance with the coming of Jesus Christ. What Jesus reveals to us is that God’s fatherhood is not some vague abstraction or mere metaphor, but a true statement about who He really is. In our creeds, we affirm God first and foremost as Father, precisely because that is who He is before all else. Indeed, our faith tells us that from all eternity God is a Trinity of Divine Persons: the Father eternally begetting the Son, and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeding from them both.

The New Testament further teaches us that if we find God the Father difficult to relate to, we can turn to Jesus for help. Jesus is our older brother, and He wants us to share in His eternal sonship. To Philip He declares, “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). And to every troubled soul, He promises His abiding presence: “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:18).

Why does the Son love us so? Because He knows what it is to be loved: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love” (John 15:9). This is a mind-blowing claim! The Master would have us realize that the love He pours out for us on Calvary is nothing but a reflection of the love the Father has had for Him for all eternity. Hence if we wish to know the love of God the Father, we need look no further than the Cross.

St. Luke’s Gospel tells us that when Jesus drew near to the city of Nain, He was met with a large crowd in a funeral procession. A young man who had died was being carried out; not only that, but he was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. Upon seeing this widow’s grief, Jesus “had compassion on her” (Luke 7:13).

The Greek verb used here is splagchnizomai, which means to be moved from the heart. The word appears only two other times in Luke’s Gospel: once to describe the compassion of the Good Samaritan (see 10:33), and once in the parable of the prodigal son, when the father has compassion upon seeing his wayward son returning home (see 15:20). Unsurprisingly, Jesus raises the young man from the dead after instructing the widow not to weep.

We might also recall the compassion Jesus felt for His own mother when the time came for Him to leave this world. Even as He gasped for breath amidst His agony on the Cross, He went to the effort of entrusting Our Lady to the protection of His beloved disciple, while at the same time placing all His would-be disciples under her maternal care (see John 19:26-27).

From beginning to end, the Bible tells the remarkable story of a loving God who calls us to be His sons and daughters (see 2 Cor 6:18). And when our sins separated us from His love, He sent His only Son to bridge that divide so that we might receive the grace of divine adoption which allows us to cry out, “Abba! Father!” (Rom 8:15).

This extraordinary biblical message offers hope and consolation to all those who have been deprived of a loving human father, whether because of death, abandonment, or abuse. And for the wider body of believers, it provides a pertinent reminder that we owe our special love and support to all those in our society who grow up without a dad: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (Jas 1:27).

Further Reading

John Eldredge, Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul (Thomas Nelson, 2001)

Scott W. Hahn, A Father Who Keeps His Promises: God’s Covenant Love in Scripture (Servant Books, 1998)

Sr. Miriam James Heidland, S.O.L.T., Loved as I Am: An Invitation to Conversion, Healing, and Freedom through Jesus

St. John Paul II, Dives in Misericordia (1980)

About Clement Harrold

Clement Harrold earned his master’s degree in theology from the University of Notre Dame in 2024, and his bachelor’s from Franciscan University of Steubenville in 2021. His writings have appeared in First Things, Church Life Journal, Crisis Magazine, and the Washington Examiner.