The Path Series | #2

364 Words / Read time: 3 Minutes

---

The Blueprint for Fatherly Sanctity

---

I am a husband. I am a father. I am common.

In the world, I am an unnoticed cog in the wheel.
In the Church, I am just another person in a pew.
The call to greatness, to glory appears beyond me.

I want to follow Christ, to be His saint.

But how.

I looked to the Church for the “way of a father.”

The Church offered so few saintly examples of fathers, no official encyclicals on fatherhood or on being a husband.

It appeared that no blueprint for fatherly sanctity existed.

While on pilgrimage, half-way around the world, I confessed to our spiritual guide that I desired to be more and do more for Christ.
She asked if I was married, to which I responded affirmatively.
She asked if I was a father. Again, I responded “Yes, of three children.”
She responded, “Go home and be St. Joseph.”

I left that conversation perplexed and disappointed.
Is this the divine revelation that I traveled halfway around the globe for?

St. Joseph?

He was not handpicked by Our Lord to be one of His apostles.
He was not an evangelist and martyr like Saints Peter and Paul.
Like Pharaoh, four-hundred years after Joseph the Patriarch saved his predecessor from famine, “I did not know Joseph” (See Ex 1:8).

After returning home, I sought sources, encyclicals, documents, outlining the role of a father.
There were none.
Then a friend gave me Pope St. John Paul II’s apostolic letter, Guardian of the Redeemer.
I read and reread the document, intensely and intentionally, underlining, highlighting, annotating…

A powerful, inspiring, life-changing, singularly convincing theme emerged:

Two of the most holy, saintly, godly, individuals were not prelates or priests, religious brothers of sisters, kings, or queens.

The two greatest saints in the Church’s history were husband and wife, father and mother, Joseph, and Mary.

A second holy inspiration alighted my soul:
Perhaps God has raised up St. Joseph as the blueprint for fatherly sanctity.

I heeded the command, “Go to Joseph, and do all that he shall say to you” (Genesis 41:55).
I set myself to the task of learning from this great saint how to be a saint.