José Gomez, Archbishop of Los Angeles, celebrated Father's Day, which originated as a Catholic holiday, by acknowledging fatherhood as a noble vocation.

“My brothers and sisters, Happy Father’s Day!” Gomez tweeted Sunday. “To be a father is a beautiful and noble vocation, a calling to serve and to love and to sacrifice. In the love that a father has for his children, we see the love that God the Father has for us.”

The Catholic Church first set aside a day to honor fathers in the Middle Ages. At first, fatherhood was celebrated in conjunction with the feast of St. Joseph, on March 19, because he is considered a paragon of good fathering.

St. Joseph and Mary were betrothed when Mary became pregnant with Jesus, Catholic.org recounts. Even though Joseph knew the baby wasn’t his, he wanted to protect Mary and the child from the fate of being stoned to death. To do that, he wanted to send her quietly away, but he put that plan on hold after an angel visited him and told him that he should take Mary as his wife because the child she carried was the son of God. Joseph took the angel’s message to heart and married Mary. Joseph became the patron saint of the Universal Church, unborn children and fathers.

Catholic leaders today stress the importance of good fathering, whether the father is biological or not, and hold Joseph up as an example.

”Fatherhood has its origins in God, who chose to reveal Himself to us as Our Father, sending his only Son for the sake of our salvation," a release from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) said. "Fathers therefore have a special role 'in revealing and in reliving on earth the very fatherhood of God' (Familiaris consortio 25). Father’s Day is an appropriate time to recall the essential role of fathers in the life of the family and in building a culture of life. It is also an opportunity to highlight spiritual fatherhood, which all men are called to embrace.”