Every Father Has This Potential

Aeneas and the fame of his descendants.

Aeneas Flees from Troy

In The Aeneid, we learn that Aeneas, like Achilles before him, receives a shield crafted by the god Vulcan/Hephaestus. On the shield are pictured the triumphs of future Rome, all the generations of Aeneas’ descendants. From Romulus, to Cataline and Cato, to Augustus’ victory over the Egyptian fleet that sealed his dominion over a crumbling republic. It’s all there. Every major military victory and event.

And Aeneas takes delight in all of these promises, even though he doesn’t understand them.

All these images on Vulcan’s shield,
His mother’s gift, were wonders to Aeneas.
Knowing nothing of the events themselves,
He felt joy in their pictures, taking up
Upon his shoulder all the destined acts
and fame of his descendants.

Aeneas knows the smallest seed can grow to greatness, even if he wouldn’t enjoy the shade cast by the leaves. His actions now would send ripples throughout history. And he took joy in the thought.

Every father has the same potential as Aeneas. Every father can help forge the building blocks of future civilizations. If a man has only three children, and they each have three children, in ten generations, that man could have over 60,000 descendants. What will they accomplish? Who knows?

He won’t know their names, and they most likely won’t know his name unless they have a weird uncle who is obsessed with family trees.

But the thought should still bring any father joy and spur him on to leave a legacy that lasts longer than a single generation. What he does matters. On his shoulders, all of his descendants depend. This responsibility is no minor thing, yet every father was made to bear it, growing stronger in the process.

Every father was made to influence the future. It is the only form of time travel known to us. The secret ingredients are patience, faith, and perseverance, all mixed together with joy.

And he will stand before God at the end of time, with all of his descendants seeking him out, a great throng, all of them there, in part, because of him. When they claimed the faith of their fathers, he was one of those fathers, whether they understood that at the time or not.