In the normal course of God's providence every family has a father. This father is the ruler of the home* to rule and govern those God has placed under his care so that all get to heaven. 

The father is another Noah who keeps his family safe from the world's flood of sin; another Moses who guides his people through a parched earth to a Promised land; another king David who establishes his household kingdom under the dominion of the one true God. 

We are all aware of the feminist attack against the traditional family structure. We will not dwell on that here. Rather, today we will explain that every family needs a father and this father must be the prince and priest of his home. This is the mind of God.
The father is prince because Adam came first then Eve. In reference to this, St. Paul writes in Ephesians, "Let women be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord."(5:22) He is priest because God intends him to lead his family in worship within the home. For this reason St. Paul continues in Ephesians, "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and delivered Himself up for it." (5:25) The principle act of the priest is sacrifice and fathers are called to sacrifice for the family.

Fathers, as kingly heads of family and priests of the home, have a high calling before Almighty God. They have been given a great trust: immortal souls to be governed and sanctified for the kingdom of God.

By natural law, once a man has become a father he is obligated to feed, clothe, shelter, educate that child until the child is able to live independently. By divine decree, a father must train his child in the love of God and the practice of virtue. And, indeed, it is this area of fatherhood that is the most important and, perhaps, the most neglected today.

Growing up it was my experience that parents were more concerned to prepare their children for a good career than eternal life. But this is not a new problem. St. John Chrysostom complained of this 1600 years ago,

"Isn't absurd to send children to jobs and to school and to do all you can to prepare them for these yet not to 'bring them up in the chastening and admonition of the Lord (Eph.6:4)?' Discipline is needed, not eloquence; character, not cleverness, deeds, not words. These gain a man a kingdom." 

The ultimate priority of a father should be to raise his children for heaven. This is the purpose of life for which all men have been created. And this is the reason God has made fathers - and they will fulfill their vocation in the measure that they resemble the heavenly Father Who with the Son and the Holy Ghost sanctifies mankind.

So how may a father fulfill his priestly role to sanctify the home? Here are some suggestions which assume the absence of moral pollution in that home.
1) Fathers, lead your family in prayer, especially by the daily recitation of Our Lady's Rosary. There is no more ready access to grace than prayer. Nor is there a better family prayer than the Rosary. Here we pray for God's will and pray for Mary's intercession; here we recount the wonderful mysteries of redemption and inculcate into our children a deepening knowledge of salvation history.
2) Fathers, consecrate your homes to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and frequently renew this consecration.
Make this formal act of establishing your home under the reign of Christ the eternal King. Set the boundaries between the world and a refuge; a place where God and godliness might be found.
3) Fathers, begin the practice of blessing your children before they go to bed, or off to college, or off to some adventure; or, whenever they ask for it. It is an ancient practice for the father to bless his children. We read in Ecclus. 3:11, "The father's blessing establishes the house of his children." A simple formula as "May God bless and keep you" could be used while placing your hands on your child's head; that will be 10 seconds well spent.
4) Initiate meals prayers before AND after eating.
5) Take the family to daily Mass when that can be done. Come to adoration frequently. 
6) Erect a holy water font near the doorway most used and use it every day: in the morning, as if putting on the armor of God; in the evening, in thanksgiving to God that He has preserved you from the world's pollution. If fathers do this, so will their children; if fathers do not, the children will have no example to follow. 
7) Most important, be a good example. Realize your children will mirror your character, your words, your example; both the good points but faults as well. This is a rule of nature: children not only look like but even (after they have grown some) mirror certain mannerisms of their parents. Children are clay vessels on a potter's wheel given you by God - form them well. Provide a good example, let them see you go to confession, hear you talk of holy things, i.e. the lives of the saints, edification at virtue, disappointment at sin; if you gossip, they will gossip; if you only find fault, they, too, will analyze the defects of their neighbor. Rather, let them hear you apologize should you offend; see you pray on your knees for God's grace; hear you sing a hymn in praise of the good God or listen to music worthy of the same.

A priest I knew used to say often: "you cannot give what you do not have." How true.

To be a good father a man must be holy or at least striving for the same. For if he strives for holiness, his children will be imparted with virtue and strive for the same; and, God willing, on the Last Day both will rejoice together for all eternity. 
It is written about the just man Job, who had ten children, that "he got up early in the morning to pray for his family." (Job 1:5) Such is the practice of the just man, the man striving for holiness, the man who is a father! 

Would that all fathers realized the greatness of their vocation to be prince and priest of the home! Would that all fathers could say at the end their life on earth what St. Paul, "father of the Gentles", said at the conclusion of his life, "my dissolution is at hand. I have fought the good fight. I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. As to the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice which God the just judge will render to me in that day, but not just to me, but to them also that love His coming." (II Tm 4:7,8)

And what joy every father would feel if his children could say of him at his passing, what St. Therese said of her parents, "The good Lord gave me a father and a mother more worthy of heaven than of earth." 

Sound too difficult. Without grace yes, indeed impossible. But the gospel gives us courage.

In today's Gospel, our dear Savior says all power in heaven and on earth has been given Him; He commissions His disciples to make disciples of all nations; finally, He assures the Church on earth of His enduring help, "I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world." Where Christ is, there is salvation. Fathers, to fulfill well your mission: hate sin, love virtue, avoid the occasions of sin, pray every day, and stay close to the Church and her sacraments - that is the way to harvest yourself and your children for heaven.