There was a time in Hollywood when the most popular leading men were categorized as “the strong, silent type.” Picture John Wayne, Gary Cooper, or Clint Eastwood. Their characters typically did not have too much to say but they got the job done, nonetheless. St. Joseph didn’t have much to say either and he most definably got the job done.

It’s easy to think of Saint Joseph as the strong silent type after all, not one word of sacred scripture is attributed to him. We only get a passing description of him from Saint Matthew who writes that Joseph was a “righteous man.” Now, righteous is a word that carries a bit of baggage as we often associate that word with self-righteous or the kind of spiritual arrogance that is displayed by certain pharisees. Righteous however is defined as “morally right, justifiable or virtuous.” I like to think of a righteous person as someone having not only virtue but the wisdom that comes with virtuous living. It breeds a confidence and a certainty in following the path of the Lord even when that path seems unintelligible to us. Joseph’s path must have seemed incomprehensible to him, yet his faith and trust in God surpassed his understandable confusion.

Consider Joseph’s disappointment and perhaps heart break when he found out that the young girl he was betrothed to was with child. As the Gospel writers tell us he could have rightly divorced her and according to Mosaic Law, Mary could have been stoned to death of this perceived behavior. It was through a dream that the angel of the Lord comforted Joseph and calmed his fears so that he was able to take Mary into his home as his wife. It was an act of tremendous faith and trust in God’s providential love. This was an unconventional beginning to an unusual family life. One that was filled with glorious moments as well as disappointment and apprehension. Joseph was quite adept at discerning God’s will and he trusted the path that the Lord had laid out for him. It was indeed a difficult path filled with fear, anxiety, and uncertainty. It’s a reminder to us that our paths are similar at times. Being open to God and following the Lord does not mean that our lives will be tranquil and carefree. So often, following the Lord means that we do take the more difficult route. It does mean that we will experience setbacks and hardships and that we will carry our crosses. But it is through these trials that our faith is strengthened and our resilience forged. Saint Joseph is an example for us on how to move forward in our own discipleship. Sometimes we just have to endure and get the job done.

Monsignor Hurley’s reflection
St. Thomas the Apostle
Wilmington, Delaware 19805

O St. Joseph, whose protection is so great, so strong, so prompt before the throne of God, I place in you all my interest and desires.O St. Joseph, do assist me by your powerful intercession, and obtain for me from your divine Son all spiritual blessings, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So that, having engaged here below your heavenly power, I may offer my thanksgiving and homage to the most loving of Fathers.O St. Joseph, I never weary of contemplating you, and Jesus asleep in your arms; I dare not approach while He reposes near your heart. Press Him close in my name and kiss His fine head for me and ask Him to return the kiss when I draw my dying breath. St. Joseph, patron of departing souls, pray for me. Amen.

https://aleteia.org/2018/02/28/this-ancient-prayer-to-st-joseph-has-never-been-known-to-fail/

The Gospel (Mt 1:16.18-21.24) tells us that Joseph was a just man, a man of faith, who lived the faith. A man who can be found on the list of all the people of faith that we have recalled today in the office of readings (see Letter the Jews, Chapter 11); those people who have lived the faith as the foundation of what they hoped for, as the guarantee of what they did not see, and the proof of what they did not see.

Joseph is a man of faith: because of this he was just. Not only because he believed, but also because he lived that faith. He was a just man. He was chosen to educate a man who was a true man but who was also God: only God could have educated such a person but there wasn’t anyone like this. The Lord chose a just man, a man of faith. A man capable of being a man and also capable of speaking to God, of entering into the mystery of God. And this was Joseph’s life. To live his profession, his life as a man and enter into the mystery. A man capable of dialoguing with the mystery of God. He wasn’t a dreamer. He entered into the mystery. With the same naturalness with which he carried on his work, with this precision of his craft: he was able to adjust an angle precisely on the wood, he knew how to do it; was able to lower, to sand down a millimetre of wood, of the surface of the wood. Right, it was accurate. But he was also able to get into the mystery that he could not control.

This is Joseph’s holiness: to carry on his life, his work with righteousness, with professionalism; and at the same time, to enter into the mystery. When the Gospel tells us about Joseph’s dreams, it makes us understand this: that he entered into the mystery.

I am thinking of the Church today on this solemnity of St. Joseph. Are our faithful, our bishops, our priests, our consecrated and consecrated fathers, our Popes: are they capable of entering into the mystery? Or do they need to be in control through rules and regulations which defend them against what they can’t control? When the Church loses the possibility of entering into the mystery, she loses the ability to adore. Prayer of adoration can only come when one enters into the mystery of God.

Let us ask the Lord for the grace that the Church can live in the concreteness of daily life and also in the “concreteness” – in quotation marks – of the mystery. If it cannot do so, it will be a half a Church, it will be a pious association, carried out by rules and regulations but without the sense of adoration. Entering the mystery is not dreaming; entering into the mystery is precisely this: adoration. Entering into the mystery is to do today what we will do in the future, when we will have arrived in the presence of God: to adore.

May the Lord grant His Church this grace.

Compassionate Joseph, one with us in our human condition,
together with Mary and Jesus you experience exile, hunger
and violence. Refusing vengeance, you choose mercy.
Your forgiveness breaks the circle of violence.
Through your goodness, God’s hope for our humanity is preserved.
Joy is yours, for the Kingdom of God is your inheritance.

Open our compassionate hands in times of war, famine and exile.
Keep us from developing a victim’s mentality, and make our pain a source of growth.
Sustain us in fulfilling our responsibility of cultivating inner peace, joy and serenity.
In your wisdom, counsel us to close all doors to bitterness, so that, watched
over by God, we may dance for joy.

 Amen.

https://www.saint-joseph.org/en/spirituality/saint-joseph/prayers-to-saint-joseph/

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)

“Blessed are those who have not seen, and have believed.” (John 20:29)

Since March is the month in which we celebrate St. Joseph, I will write each week on a different one of his virtues. The saints are not merely those who do good, but those who are good through the gift of God’s grace and through dedicating their lives to him. Each virtue is a quality in the soul that makes it excellent, and the virtue that comes at the beginning of our life in God is faith.

Faith is the virtue by which we place our trust in God and assent to all that He has revealed for our salvation. Oftentimes it is not obvious what sort of impact our beliefs have on our life. How is our life affected by the truth that God is a Holy Trinity? What is the impact of our faith in the Immaculate Conception? This is not always obvious for us. But for St. Joseph, faith had immediate consequences. St. Joseph’s belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary is not an abstract matter to him: His entire life hinged on his belief in this mystery of faith.

St. James teaches that “faith without works is dead” (Jas 2:17) and that “faith is perfected by works” (Jas 2:22). And so we see in St. Joseph a faith that is fully alive and perfect, a faith that is perfected by his works. Just to name a few of these: by faith, he took his wife Mary into his home (Mt 1:24); by faith, he gave Jesus his name (Mt 1:25); by faith, he fled to Egypt with his family (Mt 2:13); by faith, he brought his family to Nazareth and was as a father for the Messiah (Lk 2:51).

All of this came by faith. We do not hear in the Gospels that St. Joseph would have witnessed the miracles worked by Jesus, rather it seems that he died before the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. In this way, even though he lived with Jesus for many years, he is like us who have never seen the works of Jesus, but believe from the words we have received. St. Joseph only heard in a dream that the child born of Mary is the Savior and conceived by the Holy Spirit (Mt 1:19-20). He only heard from Simeon that the child would be “a light for revelation to the nations” and that he would cause “fall and rise of many” (Lk 2:32-34). Though he only heard these things by words and dreams, he placed his entire life at the service of these mysteries that he would not witness in his own lifetime.

Let us ask St. Joseph to increase our faith. Are there any divinely revealed teachings that you find difficult to believe? Remember how St. Joseph believed in the miraculous conception of Jesus, and ask for his help. Do you find it difficult to trust God, especially when suffering loss? Remember how St. Joseph left his home and all his possessions, having faith that God would provide what is truly essential.

St. Joseph, most faithful, pray for us.

 Fr. Max Nightingale
St. Joseph Battle Creek, MI

Eucharistic Adoration, or just coming to sit in church before the Eucharist housed in the tabernacle, in doing this, we imitate our patron St. Joseph.  His vocation was one of perpetual adoration.  He kept his eyes on Jesus, first by caring for Mary and watching over her, the first Tabernacle, and then after his birth protecting, housing, feeding, teaching, and loving Jesus. 

In our Gospel Luke 2: 41-51a, Joseph and Mary find Jesus after three days, they find him in the Temple.  But when we think about it, they had the new Temple with them at all times.  St. Peter Julian Eymard put it this way, “St. Joseph was the first adorer, the first religious.  Although he never adored our Lord under the Eucharistic species and never had the happiness of receiving Holy Communion, he did possess and adore Jesus in human form.”  He goes on to say, “In Joseph, we find the perfect adorer, entirely consecrated to Jesus, working always near Jesus, giving Jesus his virtues, his time, his very life; it is thus that he is our model and our inspiration.”  

St. Joseph was an adorer of great faith.  When he looked at Jesus he saw human flesh, but in his heart he believed, “Here is God!”  We pray to have that same faith, when we look at the Eucharist, we see bread, but in our hearts we believe, “Here is God!”  Under the veil of Bread our faith must see our Lord.  Ask St. Joseph for his lively constant faith.  

In 1997 Pope St. John Paul II conducted a papal visit to the Shrine of St. Joseph in Kalisz in Poland and informed those in attendance that, before each of his Masses, he prayed the following prayer to St. Joseph.

O happy man, St. Joseph, whose privilege it was not only to see and hear that god whom many a king has longed to see, yet saw not, longed to hear, yet heard not, but also to carry him in your arms and kiss him, to clothe him and watch over him!

O God, who has conferred upon us a royal priesthood, we pray to you to give us grace to minister at your holy altars with hearts as clean and lives as blameless as that blessed Joseph who was found to hold in his arms and, with all reverence, carry your only-begotten Son, born of the Virgin Mary.  Enable us this day to receive worthily the sacred Body and Blood of your son, and equip us to win an everlasting reward in the world to come.  Amen

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley
St. Joseph Battle Creek, Mi

Dear Friend, 

Happy Saint Joseph’s Day! This is a great feast day, indeed. In fact, even though we are in the midst of our Lenten penances, the Solemnity of Saint Joseph ensures that today is that rarest of things, a “Meat Friday”. Hence, there is to be no fasting as we celebrate the earthly life and heavenly protection of the patron saint, among many other things, of the Universal Church, families, married couples and, of course, fathers. 

By the time my own father, Earl, was 50-years-old he already had ten children, the oldest of whom was a priest and the youngest were twin girls aged ten. Five still lived at home and the rest were off in the world. The thought that occurred to me at that time was this: That dad, when he married my mother in 1950, had no idea what was in store for himself. His fathering over those subsequent 30 years was not of his own creation, but was given to him. 

Saint Joseph is called a “just man” in today’s gospel account from Saint Matthew. What exactly does this mean? To answer this question, I would like to make a couple of assumptions. First of all, I presume that Joseph found out about Mary’s pregnancy because she told him and that she told him the truth, that this was God’s doing, that this was God’s Son.  Secondly, I presume that Joseph’s justice is not a function of his selfishness, but rather of his goodness. Therefore, to call Joseph a just man means that Joseph, knowing that Mary was pregnant and that the child was the Son of the Most High God, also knew that he could not wed Mary and claim that child as his own – for it was God’s child, and he, Joseph, was unworthy to claim to be his father. Joseph’s justice meant that he had to drop all claims to Mary and to any future progeny with Mary.   

When the angel then speaks to Joseph, the angel tells Joseph that God needs Joseph: God needs Joseph to bring this child into the House of David and God needs Joseph to name this child, Jesus. 

So, Joseph was given a wife, a child, a family that was not his own and Joseph was told to be the father of this family. Is this not how it is with all of us? We all like to think that our families are ours but, really, they are gifts to us. We were gifts from God to our parents and any children will also be gifts to us. And as for me, a priest, I too have always had a strong desire to be the father of the family. My promise of celibacy does not obviate that desire; rather the desire is recast in the promise of celibacy with the grace provided by God.   

This desire to be father has touched my own life. When I was asked to be the Rector of the Josephinum seminary, it came as a great surprise (below is a photograph of the seminary’s 2002 commencement). It became clear that this was what God wanted me to do. God had given me a family which was not my own in Columbus, Ohio. And then, sure enough, he brought me back to Detroit as an auxiliary bishop to help care for that family.  And, finally, he brought me here to the Diocese of Lansing in 2008 to care for this family. 

Why should I or any of us be surprised by this turn of events?  Is this not really the nature of all parenting? 

First, it is always given: David wanted to build the house, but Nathan spoke clearly for God when he told King David, “I will raise up your heirs after you….”  God gives us the house, the family. We carry out His Fatherly love in parenting what he provides. Paul, in his Letter to the Romans, reminds us that this was also the case with Abraham: “I have made you father of many nations.” In a sense my own earthly father was given a family. There is no way he could have anticipated what that gift would be, or how difficult it would be.  And every one of us is given a family as well – one we know not, one which is not really ours.   

Joseph models for us the kind of parents we are all to be. He sacrificed any dreams he may have had, any plans for the kind of family he may have wanted, in order to be the father God wanted him to be. His whole self was sacrificed to Mary and Jesus. This is the role of every parent: we are to pour ourselves out to bring about God’s dreams and plans and not our own. This is no small thing. God entrusted to Joseph the entire mystery of salvation. Is not that mystery far greater than any of our own human dreams. That mystery penetrates all of us – God’s will and plan are not something any earthly parent can predict or control. Most of the time we can only look on in awe at what God does to those entrusted to us – how God makes them holy, sometimes in spite of ourselves. To be a good parent, all any of us can do is allow God his way and to give ourselves over completely to his will. 

Joseph also models parenting for us in that he is “a man of action”, as Pope Saint John Paul II observed on this day in 1980. When Joseph awoke from his dream, we are told “he did as the angel of the Lord had directed him.”  He did – Joseph was one who acts. This would have been one of the primary ways Joseph would have taught Jesus, by acting, by doing, especially by acting upon the will of God. So, we teach those in our charge to be persons whose words bear fruit in action, because we are willing to do what is required of us, no matter the cost to ourselves. 

Joseph is, finally, a model for us of parenting because he does name the lad – he names him, true enough, with the name he received from the angel, but Joseph is needed to do this naming: Jesus. Joseph does not accept the angel’s request to take Mary as his wife and to fulfill his role with a tired resignation or sadness. Rather, he is given this task and he will do it. He will name, he will teach, he will guide, he will protect, always aware that this child and this wife are given him. They are not his. No one of us grudgingly accepts the family given to us; rather, we embrace that family with our all, knowing not how it will turn out, knowing it is not ours but God’s. 

My brother and sisters, we are given that family, that responsibility God wants us to shoulder in our lives. For the time we are so given, we are to do this with all that we are, with a full heart, acting, naming, sacrificing ourselves. My dad was doing this when he was 50-years-old and continues to do so to this day; I am to do this now, perhaps in slightly different ways; but all of us are called to do the same. Saint Joseph, pray for us!  

Assuring you of my prayers, I am sincerely yours in Christ, 

+ Earl Boyea
Bishop of Lansing

Dear Brothers and Sisters, 

Lent is drawing to a close very quickly and we are focused on the final moments of Jesus’ life on earth. During the last two weeks of Lent, which are traditionally referred to as Passiontide and Holy Week, we hear the Gospel passages of Jesus’ final dialog with those who will not accept the truth that He brings from the Father. As part of His rejection and betrayal by the religious authorities and His own apostle, He willingly surrenders His life in faithfulness to His Father’s will for our salvation. In many of our churches, signs of the Resurrection (statues and other images) are covered to remind us of the sorrow that comes with the betrayal and death of the Savior. We fast from the signs of the Resurrection and meditate on Jesus’ last act of surrender and our own eventual passing as well.

During the Year of St. Joseph, we are considering the moments of his life and mission as head of the Holy Family. Like many times in the Scriptures, St. Joseph is silent during Jesus’ suffering and death. In fact, St. Joseph is completely missing in any account of Jesus’ suffering, death, and Resurrection. Mary is present. Others are present. St. Joseph is gone. Our tradition reminds us that St. Joseph died some time between the finding of Jesus as a child in the Temple at age 12 and the time when Jesus began His public ministry at the age of 30. Those “hidden” years in the life of St. Joseph, outside of special visions given to some Saints and mystics about his life during those years, remains an unrevealed mystery. 

St. Joseph’s absence from Holy Week can show us much of how God works our salvation through death itself. St. Joseph was the head of the Holy Family. The head of a family is charged to be the first to step out into uncharted territory, to make the path clear and safe for other family members to travel, and to show an example of how to make the journey. It was appropriate that St. Joseph was the first to leave this world so that he could show Jesus, by example, on a human level, how to surrender Himself to the Father in death. St. Joseph had always courageously surrendered himself to the Father’s will in every decision he made for himself or for the good of his wife and family. In order to pass through one’s passion and death, every person must do so with faith, courage, and perseverance in God’s grace. St. Joseph persevered through his suffering and death and modeled the virtues of faith, hope, and trust in the salvation promised to him by his own foster-Son. St. Joseph also shows us that if we have faith and stay together as a family through our sufferings, we should not fear sickness, suffering, or death, because our Father in heaven is guiding our family together through this world of suffering to a place where we can be together in joy forever. The tranquility of St. Joseph in his own death certainly helped Jesus and Mary to later persevere through the pain of the Cross. St. Joseph not only showed Jesus and Mary how to persevere through suffering and death, but he also shows us how to do the same. In our tradition, St. Joseph is Patron of the Dying because he lived his life with Jesus and Mary and he died being united in the love of Jesus and Mary. He shows us that if we want to be with Jesus and Mary in heaven, we need to spiritually “walk” with them throughout our lives. He served their needs during his life. We may ask ourselves if we are following and serving Jesus with every bit of strength we have and, if so, are we also doing what Mary asked of us at Cana, “Do whatever He tells you.” How we live our life is how we will die. The Father’s will is for us to die in a spiritual union of faith and love with Jesus and Mary so that our living relationship with them pulls us through to eternal life. St. Joseph went through death in trust that he would soon be reunited in a new resurrected life at the completion of Holy Week. 

The foster-father of Jesus was not inactive, however, during Holy Week. Our tradition tells us that St. Joseph went to join the Holy Souls in the place of the dead (sometimes referred to in the Creed as hell, or in theological language as limbo). Limbo is an appropriate term for the waiting that souls had to endure not knowing exactly when their deliverance to heavenly life would happen.

 St. Joseph brought them the good news that his foster-Son was coming very soon to cleanse them of their sins, to deliver them from their situation, and to lead them to eternal life. It would not be long before Jesus would “descend to the dead” to deliver them. After Mary, St. Joseph is the most just and righteous human being who has ever lived. It is believed that he inherited Original Sin but that he was personally righteous in every moral choice during his life. He therefore also had to await salvation through Jesus’ death and Resurrection with other righteous souls who had lived from the beginning of time in the place of the dead. St. Joseph as Protector and Patron of the universal Catholic Church was already fulfilling that role by ministering to “The Church Suffering” present and waiting in the place of the dead. One might imagine that when Jesus “descended into hell” that he would have delivered his foster-father first when He arrived there to honor him for his faithful care and example during his life on earth. 

In Catholic art, the death of St. Joseph is often portrayed as a close and sacred moment in the life of the Holy Family. Jesus and Mary are seen standing by the bedside of St. Joseph keeping vigil with him for his departure. Just as the Hebrew patriarchs and people stood to eat the Passover meal before their departure from Egypt toward the Promised Land, Mary and Jesus stood in constant prayer asking the Father to help St. Joseph persevere in faith and trust until he would arrive in the Promised Land of Heaven. St. Joseph, Jesus, and Mary teach us and our loved ones how to make our pilgrimage through death to eternal life! 

It is good to ask St. Joseph to pray for us that we will have a peaceful and happy death. We might also spiritually assist others who are dying by making sure that a priest brings Jesus in the Sacraments (In particular, the “last rites” of Confession, Anointing of the Sick, and Viaticum which is the Last Holy Communion) to those who are terminally ill or dying. We might also pray the Rosary and the Litany of St. Joseph in the presence of the dying as they are making their way to eternity. In this way, we will be with Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in life, death, and heavenly glory. 

One of the most beloved hymns to St. Joseph asks for this kind of spiritual assistance from St. Joseph at the time of our own passing. This hymn is thought to have been composed by the Sisters of Notre Dame (de Namur) of Liverpool, England. The first known appearance of the hymn was found in “Convent Hymns and Music” in 1891. It teaches us to prepare for death by living life with Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and to take their attitude about life and death. Properly understood, this hymn teaches us St. Joseph’s Holy Week wisdom about life, suffering, and death: 

Tap here to listen as you follow along with the words below:
Dear St. Joseph, pure and gentle, Guardian of the Savior child, Treading with the virgin mother, Egypt’s deserts rough and wild.

Chorus:
Hail, St. Joseph, spouse of Mary, Blessed above all saints on high, When the death-shades round us gather, Teach, oh, teach us how to die.

He who rested on thy bosom Is by countless saints adored; Prostrate angels in His presence Sing hosannas to their Lord. 

Now to thee no gift refusing, Jesus stoops to hear thy prayer; Then, dear saint, from thy fair dwelling, Give to us a father’s care. 

Dear St. Joseph, kind and loving, Stretch to us a helping hand; Guide us through life’s toils and sorrows Safely to the distant land. 

In the strife of life be near us, And in death, oh, hover nigh, Let our souls on thy sweet bosom To their home of gladness fly. 

Thou hast known a pilgrim’s sorrows, But thy day of toil is o’er; Help us while we journey onward Lead us to the peaceful shore. 

Hail St. Joseph, just and holy, Loving children breathe thy name; Here below, through toil and danger, Love and care from thee we claim. 

May St. Joseph help us and our families to make our passage with Jesus and Mary through our own suffering and death to the shores of the promised Land of Heaven!

In Christ’s Glorious Passion, Fr. Derda,
St. Stanislaus & Sacred Heart Catholic Parish
Dorr, MI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_pZpUKDUg8&t=75s

Since a man is justified by faith (Rom. 3:28), it is reasonable to consider the justice of St. Joseph after having considered his faith. The justice of St. Joseph is the one virtue of his testified directly by the Gospel, which says “Joseph, her husband, being a just man…” (Mt. 1:19). And we see that St. Joseph possesses this virtue in full measure through the actions of his recorded in the Gospels.

St. Thomas Aquinas defines the virtue of justice as “the perpetual and constant will to render to each one his right” (II-II, q. 58, a. 1). To be just is to be in right relation to others: to your neighbor, to society, to your family, to God. The justice of St. Joseph becomes apparent in his fulfillment of every duty, respecting what is owed in every relation.

With respect to civil society, we see St. Joseph fulfill his obligations as a resident in the Roman Empire, making the several-day journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem to be enrolled in the census of Caesar Augustus (Lk. 2:1). Receiving the warning in a dream, he brought his family to live in Egypt for several years. In order to live peacefully in Egypt, St. Joseph would have learned the customs and laws of that country so to observe justice even there. Though the darkness of idolatry existed in Egypt, St. Joseph would have found ways to bear witness to the one true God, for “the just man is a light in the darkness” (Ps. 112:4).

With respect to the religious law, we see St. Joseph leading his family in the full observance of the laws revealed by God. He takes care that Jesus is circumcised on the eighth day (Lk. 2:21), he brings Jesus to Jerusalem at the time of purification “according to the law of Moses” (Lk. 2:22), he offers the prescribed sacrifice of two turtledoves or pigeons (Lk. 2:24), he “performed everything according to the law of the Lord” (Lk. 2:39), and he “went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of Passover” (Lk. 2:41).

Above all, we see St. Joseph prompt and ready to do whatever is required for the care of his family, for Jesus and Mary. He receives Mary into his home as soon as he knows that this is lawful (Mt. 1:24), he accepts her child as his own (Lk. 3:23), he relocates to protect the life of this child (Mt. 2:13), and he practices a trade to supply for the material needs of Jesus and Mary (Mk. 6:3).

Jesus came into the world to be the “sun of justice” (Mal. 4:2), so it should be no surprise that the man entrusted to care for Jesus should himself be a perfect model of justice. Do you find yourself at odds with others instead of in right relation with them? Go to St. Joseph. Do you struggle to fulfill your obligations to either God or your neighbor? Seek help from St. Joseph. Perhaps you give to each their due, but only begrudgingly or with greater concern for your own interests? Learn from St. Joseph, the just man who placed his entire life at service of the Christ and his Holy Mother.

St. Joseph, most just, pray for us.

Fr. Max Nightingale
St. Joseph Battle Creek, MI

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