One month before Shannon and I got married, my father passed away. We had a roller coaster of a relationship throughout my childhood, and early adult life, but before he passed we were given the opportunity to fix our relationship and mend the hurts and brokenness of the past.
On our wedding day, in honor of my father, Shannon and I not only placed flowers at the Mary altar, but also at the feet of St. Joseph. Looking back, I realized that God was calling us to place our marriage in the hands of the Holy Family for guidance and protection. The Holy Family has seen us through the good times and the bad, sickness and health. The intercession of the Holy Family has given us the strength and courage to face whatever obstacle has come with joy and courage. St. Joseph has been a role model for me as a husband, father and deacon.
In our world today, we see the family and fatherhood under attack. Men have not done a good job as husbands and fathers. They have been adulterers, abusers, or non-existent in the lives of the women they “love” or their children. They use women as objects of pleasure and deny them their human dignity. The use of pornography has made men view sexuality as something done for pleasure and not as a expression of committed love. Men have become driven by self-indulgence, self-reliance, and have a need to succeed driven by ego and the search for money and power.
In the midst of all of this, gender equality has become a race, a competition. It reminds of the song from the musical Annie Get Your Gun “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better.” Equality has been championed as a need to be exactly the same. In being created in the image and likeness of God, we share human dignity and the differences of the genders should be seen as the true blessing that they are. Men and women are created to share in complementarity on all levels of existence – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. This complementarity helps us to grow by respecting the human dignity of the other and realizing that as an individual, I do not possess perfection of all that is good. The complementarity of the men and women opens our hearts to live in communion with one another and with God as an earthly sign of the Trinity.
Ephesians Chapter 5 is often used as a reading for weddings. It is also one of the most misunderstood scriptural texts. In it, St. Paul says “Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ.Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord….Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her…Each one of you should love his wife as himself, and the wife should respect her husband.” This text is often seen as St. Paul’s attempt to make women 2nd class citizens, but if you read it closely with the example of Mary and Joseph in your heart, you see that this passage is a call for covenantal love. Subordinating one’s will and loving as Christ loves the Church is a call to love sacrificially in honor of the covenant made with one another and with God. This love is an earthly sign of the love that God has for humanity. Mary and Joseph lived this kind of covenantal love and raised Jesus in a family that loved and respected each other and God the Father.
St. Joseph stands as a model for spouses and parents in the midst of our troubled world. His humble and sacrificial love of Jesus and Mary shows us how to revitalize our marriages and families. WITH A FATHER’S HEART: that is how Joseph loved Jesus and his love and care for the Blessed Virgin Mary is a model of the love that all spouses should have for one another.
As the earthly father of Jesus, St. Joseph provides the example necessary for human parents today. Saint Paul VI pointed out that Joseph concretely expressed his fatherhood “by making his life a sacrificial service to the mystery of the Incarnation and its redemptive purpose. He employed his legal authority over the Holy Family to devote himself completely to them in his life and work. He turned his human vocation to domestic love into a superhuman oblation of himself, his heart and all his abilities, a love placed at the service of the Messiah who was growing to maturity in his home”.
The love that parents feel for their children and for each other must be guided by the love of God for them as individuals and as a family. The family is called to be an image of the Trinity on earth, with the lover, the beloved and the power of the love that they share. When love is missing from the family, or is used to force another person to bend to our own selfish desires, it is counterfeit. This counterfeit for love denies the other person their human dignity and leaves all parties involved hurt, and broken. This is not the love that God has created us in and for.
“Even through Joseph’s fears, God’s will, his history and his plan were at work. Joseph, then, teaches us that faith in God includes believing that he can work even through our fears, our frailties and our weaknesses. He also teaches us that amid the tempests of life, we must never be afraid to let the Lord steer our course. At times, we want to be in complete control, yet God always sees the bigger picture.”
In St. Joseph we see love in action. We see a man that listens to the word of God in his heart, and does what he is called to do to meet the needs of his family. St. Joseph sets aside his personal wants and desires, his plan for his life to respond to God’s will for his life. In his silence, we see humble service to his family. Because of this service, St. Joseph was blessed with the most intimate relationship with his wife Mary, and his Son, Jesus the Savior of the world. Through St. Joseph’s life of sacrifice, we are all saved by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.
As a husband, St. Joseph takes Mary into his home and loves her unconditionally. His love for her is pure and not complicated by lustful desire. As Mary’s husband, St. Joseph expresses his love by placing her needs above his own. In an intimate union, St. Joseph adds his own fiat, his own yes to Mary’s acceptance of God’s plan for their lives. In his love and care for Mary, St. Joseph is the model for all spouses in their love and care for each other, and for their children.
As a Church, and a world today, it is time to Go to Joseph! St. Joseph is a role model of humble service to God the Father. He is a role model for spouses and parents. He is the role model for children. He is a role model of humble and obedient service. By consecrating ourselves to St. Joseph, we are accepting his spiritual fatherhood into our lives. As the earthly father of Jesus, St. Joseph was the first to gaze in adoration of the Word made Flesh. As our spiritual father, he gazes on us with the same love and fatherly concern. He desires to take us by the hand and bring us to a deeper contemplation and a loving relationship with his son, Jesus. St. Joseph stands with Jesus and Mary in the Holy Family as an example of how the earthly love shared within our families is a glimpse of the love we are invited to share in with God. This love is not meant for some far off distant time when we die and enter into our eternal reward. The Holy Family is a sign that this love is for the here and the now. Just as heaven touches earth at each Mass, when Jesus is made present in the Eucharist, heaven can be a place on earth when we love one another in the spirit of the Holy Family. As we consecrate ourselves to St. Joseph, let us Go to Joseph, and ask him to guide us in love of God, love of neighbor, and proper love of self, so that we may respond to God’s will in our lives. Living a life with St. Joseph as our model, we hope to one day hear Jesus say, “Well done my good and faithful servant.”
St. Joseph, spouse of Mary and foster father of Jesus, pray for us.
Deacon Scott A. Root
Pastoral Associate
St. Katharine Drexel Parish
Mechanicsburg, PA 17050
rootscott@skdparish.com
Amy McEntee
Kimberly Kay Cox
Mark Mogilka
Armando Cervantes
Anna Betancourt
Andrea Chavez-Kopp