There came a time in my life when the call to serve God through the Church grew louder than the noise of my own doubts. Drawn by a longing I couldn’t explain, I entered seminary—a sacred space where I would spend three formative years immersed in prayer, study, and spiritual formation. Those years were not easy, but they were holy. They shaped me deeply, breaking open old wounds and revealing hidden strengths. And while I didn’t remain in seminary, I did not leave unchanged. What I received there—wisdom, discipline, devotion—became the foundation for the most important ministry of my life: fatherhood. As the dad of two incredible children, I’ve come to realize that the lessons I once sought in chapel silence now echo in car rides, bedtime talks, and the quiet moments when my kids unknowingly remind me what it means to live with faith, hope, and love.
It came swaddled in hospital blankets, with wide eyes staring up at me as if they already knew everything I had forgotten. It came with midnight cries, sticky fingers, whispered bedtime prayers, and fierce, wild love. It came in the form of my daughter and my son—my greatest teachers, my living sacraments.
The First Altar: The Home
Faith doesn’t always look like kneeling in pews or chanting sacred words in ancient tongues. Sometimes it looks like making pancakes on a Sunday morning when you’re bone-tired. Sometimes it’s staying calm during a meltdown, or holding space for a teenager’s silence when they can’t yet speak the ache they carry.
Our homes can become temples, if we choose to see them that way. And our children—though loud, messy, and ever-transforming—are often the ones who keep our altars real. They pull us down from lofty theology and root us back into the incarnational truth of faith: love must take flesh to mean anything.
Divine Reflection in Tiny Eyes
Each of my children has mirrored something back to me that I needed to reclaim.
My daughter—wise beyond her years—has shown me what resilience looks like in the face of challenge. Her fierce independence and deep emotional insight have reminded me not to dismiss my own inner child or silence my intuition for the sake of being “logical” or “strong.”
My son—gentle, expressive, full of wonder—has reawakened in me the innocence of faith. The way he notices beauty in a sunset, a bird’s song, or a funny shape in the clouds brings me back to God in the most natural way possible: through awe.
They teach me that spiritual depth is not about escaping this world. It’s about embracing it—fully, tenderly, and with great care.
Sacrifice as Sacred Offering
Being a father means giving up a lot of things—quiet mornings, spontaneous trips, uninterrupted thoughts. But I’ve come to realize that these “sacrifices” are not interruptions to my spiritual journey. They are the spiritual journey.
Every time I lay something down for the sake of love, I am participating in the same sacred pattern that underlies the life of Christ: kenosis, or self-emptying.
This is not martyrdom in the unhealthy sense. It’s devotion. And like all true offerings, it transforms both the giver and the receiver.
Too often, we confuse sacrifice with self-erasure—believing that to love others well, we must disappear, diminish, or suppress our needs entirely. But holy devotion doesn’t ask us to become less of ourselves. It asks us to become more fully aligned with the heart of love. True devotion is not rooted in resentment or obligation; it flows from a place of sacred willingness—a choice made again and again to show up, to give, to love, even when it costs something. And in doing so, it changes us.
I’ve seen this most clearly in fatherhood. The moments when I’ve set aside my comfort to sit with a hurting child, to offer presence instead of solutions, to listen instead of lecture—those are the moments I’ve felt the veil thin between the ordinary and the divine. In choosing to give with love, I am not emptied—I am expanded. And my children, in turn, receive not just my time or my help, but my being. That kind of giving creates a mutual transformation: I become more grounded, more compassionate, more attuned. And they become more secure, more open, more seen.
This is the sacred paradox of devotion. It doesn’t deplete—it deepens. It doesn’t erase identity—it reveals the truest self, hidden beneath layers of ego. It is the kind of offering that mirrors the Christ-path—not in theatrical suffering, but in quiet, daily surrender to love.
When My Faith Faltered, My Children Led Me Back
There have been seasons when I doubted everything—when religion felt rigid, when prayer felt dry, when God felt distant. And in those times, it was often my children who reintroduced me to the Divine in a way no doctrine ever could.
A hug. A question. A burst of laughter. A drawing left for me on the table. These were the sacraments that softened my heart and reminded me why I still believe in love, in beauty, in redemption.
Sometimes they even speak truth without knowing it, like prophets unaware of their own mantle.
Becoming a Father and a Priest
Now, as I walk this unfolding path toward priesthood within a more mystical and inclusive expression of the Church, I don’t see my roles as competing—but as complementing.
Fatherhood grounds my faith in the real. It keeps me accountable to the values I preach. It reminds me that any authority I may hold must be rooted in compassion, not control.
And my faith, in turn, helps me father (and step father) with greater grace. It invites me to trust the bigger story. To offer my children not just protection, but vision. To raise them in freedom, not fear. To remind them that they are sacred.
The Final Lesson: Love Is the Liturgy
My children don’t need me to be perfect. They need me to be present.
They don’t need dogma. They need love that listens, love that laughs, love that gets back up when it falls short.
And in that, I see the very heart of God.
So if you’re a parent walking the tightrope between your spiritual calling and your everyday responsibilities, know this: you’re not failing—you’re being formed. You are not torn in two—you are being braided together by grace.
Our children may not use the language of theology, but they are often the truest catechists of all. And when we let them lead us back to simplicity, back to joy, back to love—we find ourselves, again, in the holy.
Blessings on your path, and may you always recognize the sacred in the everyday.
– Joseph Michael
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