The Secret Path
God has created a secret path between earth and heaven, between God and man, between our nascent identity and our ultimate destiny. If you follow this secret path you will become a man of greatness. This secret path is the context in which God has ordained for you to continually and perpetually give yourself away and thus discover who you are, your mission, and your ultimate destiny. The secret path is your fatherly vocation. Your identification is discovered by means of your vocation, which leads to your destination, which is your glorification—deification, that is, to be a partaker in the divine nature (2 Pet 1:4). Your vocation is your path to glory, to greatness. If you are a husband and father, then this is your path to glory and no other path will be given.
God the Word is always speaking for the purpose of leading us to Him. From the moment of your conception, throughout your human life, the Word whispers His voice into your being. The context in which we hear the Word is in and amidst our fatherly vocation. Remember that the word “vocation” is derived from the Latin word vox, which means voice. It is in and through your fatherly vocation that you will receive the voice of God, which will continually reveal more of your mission.
St. Joseph, amidst his fatherly vocation, in self-donation to Mary and Jesus, embraced celibacy for the Kingdom, left his home in Nazareth, on the night of the Savior’s birth he was shunned by his own in Bethlehem, and worked his trade in the foreign land of Egypt to ensure that the Holy Family would not only survive but thrive. Joseph discovered, amidst his fatherly vocation, that he was an essential part of God’s plan to redeem the world. In and through the mission of Joseph’s fatherhood, he discovered his identity, and in fulfilling his vocation he achieved his God-ordained destiny.
You and I have a choice: to withdraw ourselves from the secret path that leads toward greatness, or to remain steadfast on the vocational path of fatherhood. If you “[w]alk worthy of the vocation in which you are called” (Eph 4:1) you will, like Joseph, become a father of glory.
