Can a Father Be the Greatest in the Kingdom of God?

I committed myself to embrace the summons to “Go home and be like St. Joseph.”

Yet, I was assailed by the continual temptation to believe that being married, having sexual intercourse, having children, working for lucre, hindered, if not disqualified me from achieving great sanctity.

Sainthood, holiness appeared to be an impossible ideal.

While attending my niece’s baptism, the priest read the Gospel of St. Matthew, chapter 18, verses 3-5.

“Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like little children you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Whoever, therefore, humbles himself as this little child, he is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
And whoever receives one such little child for My sake, receives Me.”

St. Mark goes on to say,

“Whoever receives Me, receives not only Me, but My Father.”

As I churned over those words, a divine light pervaded my soul:

A father becomes like a little child by recognizing his own dependence upon God the Father, precisely in his desire to provide for and protect the child he has received.

I thought,

“If I embrace the humble vocation of fatherhood by receiving a little child for Christ’s sake, I could be great in the Kingdom of God.”

Our Lord Jesus promised that the rewards of the vocation of fatherhood are among the greatest:

“Whoever therefore humbles himself like a little child, he is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

And again,

“Whoever receives one such little child for my sake, receives Me.”

Up to this point, I perceived fatherhood as an apparently weak vocation, lacking the ability to make me into a great saint.
Yet, in this moment, a grace was imparted to me.

In my weakness I am strong.
I realized that the apparent weakness of the vocation of fatherhood is precisely the key to its greatness.

By receiving my child as Christ, I would receive Christ through my child.
By embracing my fatherhood, I would become a little child—
by becoming dependent on God the Father.

By becoming a father, little and humble, I would be among the greatest in the Kingdom, inheriting Christ Himself and His Father.

God destined fatherhood to be a path to holiness.