In November 2020, Pope Francis declared the next year would be dedicated to St. Joseph, husband of Mary and foster-father of Jesus Christ. St. Joseph, as you know, is the Patron of the Universal Church. What an amazing opportunity in the midst of our global turmoil to reflect on our steadfast protector, defender, and humble obedient servant. The following forty reflections and prayers can be read in any order and on any day, written by priests’ and deacons’ who use the myParish app in their parishes. Join us to reflect on the life of St. Joseph.

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

THE YEAR OF ST. JOSEPH PRAYER

To you, O blessed Joseph, do we come in our afflictions, and having implored the help of your most holy Spouse, we confidently invoke your patronage also.

Through that charity which bound you to the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God and through the paternal love with which you embraced the Child Jesus, we humbly beg you graciously to regard the inheritance which Jesus Christ has purchased by his Blood, and with your power and strength to aid us in our necessities.

O most watchful guardian of the Holy Family, defend the chosen children of Jesus Christ; O most loving father, ward off from us every contagion of error and corrupting influence; O our most mighty protector, be kind to us and from heaven assist us in our struggle with the power of darkness.

As once you rescued the Child Jesus from deadly peril, so now protect God’s Holy Church from the snares of the enemy and from all adversity; shield, too, each one of us by your constant protection, so that, supported by your example and your aid, we may be able to live piously, to die in holiness, and to obtain eternal happiness in heaven. Amen.

“I do not remember even now that I have ever asked anything of [St. Joseph] which he has failed to grant… To other saints the Lord seems to have given grace to succour us in some of our necessities, but of this glorious saint my experience is that he succours us in them all…”  (Autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila)

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

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good Morning,

We celebrate St Joseph the Worker and begin the month traditionally dedicated to Our Lady. In our encounter this morning, I want to focus on these two figures, so important in the life of Jesus, the Church and in our lives, with two brief thoughts: the first on work, the second on the contemplation of Jesus.

1. In the Gospel of St Matthew, in one of the moments when Jesus returns to his town, to Nazareth, and speaks in the Synagogue, the amazement of his fellow townspeople at his wisdom is emphasized. They asked themselves the question: “Is not this the carpenter’s son?” (13:55). Jesus comes into our history, he comes among us by being born of Mary by the power of God, but with the presence of St Joseph, the legal father who cares for him and also teaches him his trade. Jesus is born and lives in a family, in the Holy Family, learning the carpenter’s craft from St Joseph in his workshop in Nazareth, sharing with him the commitment, effort, satisfaction and also the difficulties of every day.

This reminds us of the dignity and importance of work. The Book of Genesis tells us that God created man and woman entrusting them with the task of filling the earth and subduing it, which does not mean exploiting it but nurturing and protecting it, caring for it through their work (cf. Gen 1:28; 2:15). Work is part of God’s loving plan, we are called to cultivate and care for all the goods of creation and in this way share in the work of creation! Work is fundamental to the dignity of a person. Work, to use a metaphor, “anoints” us with dignity, fills us with dignity, makes us similar to God, who has worked and still works, who always acts (cf. Jn 5:17); it gives one the ability to maintain oneself, one’s family, to contribute to the growth of one’s own nation. And here I think of the difficulties which, in various countries, today afflict the world of work and business today; I am thinking of how many, and not only young people, are unemployed, often due to a purely economic conception of society, which seeks profit selfishly, beyond the parametres of social justice.

I wish to extend an invitation to solidarity to everyone, and I would like to encourage those in public office to make every effort to give new impetus to employment, this means caring for the dignity of the person, but above all I would say do not lose hope. St Joseph also experienced moments of difficulty, but he never lost faith and was able to overcome them, in the certainty that God never abandons us. And then I would like to speak especially to you young people: be committed to your daily duties, your studies, your work, to relationships of friendship, to helping others; your future also depends on how you live these precious years of your life. Do not be afraid of commitment, of sacrifice and do not view the future with fear. Keep your hope alive: there is always a light on the horizon.

I would like to add a word about another particular work situation that concerns me: I am referring to what we could define as “slave labour”, work that enslaves. How many people worldwide are victims of this type of slavery, when the person is at the service of his or her work, while work should offer a service to people so they may have dignity. I ask my brothers and sisters in the faith and all men and women of good will for a decisive choice to combat the trafficking in persons, in which “slave labour” exists.

2. With reference to the second thought: in the silence of the daily routine, St Joseph, together with Mary, share a single common centre of attention: Jesus. They accompany and nurture the growth of the Son of God made man for us with commitment and tenderness, reflecting on everything that happened. In the Gospels, St Luke twice emphasizes the attitude of Mary, which is also that of St Joseph: she “kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (2:19,51). To listen to the Lord, we must learn to contemplate, feel his constant presence in our lives and we must stop and converse with him, give him space in prayer. Each of us, even you boys and girls, young people, so many of you here this morning, should ask yourselves: “how much space do I give to the Lord? Do I stop to talk with him?” Ever since we were children, our parents have taught us to start and end the day with a prayer, to teach us to feel that the friendship and the love of God accompanies us. Let us remember the Lord more in our daily life!

And in this month, I would like to recall the importance and beauty of the prayer of the Holy Rosary. Reciting the Hail Mary, we are led to contemplate the mysteries of Jesus, that is, to reflect on the key moments of his life, so that, as with Mary and St Joseph, he is the centre of our thoughts, of our attention and our actions. It would be nice if, especially in this month of May, we could pray the Holy Rosary together in the family, with friends, in the parish, or some prayer to Jesus and the Virgin Mary! Praying together is a precious moment that further strengthens family life, friendship! Let us learn to pray more in the family and as a family!

Dear brothers and sisters, let us ask St Joseph and the Virgin Mary to teach us to be faithful to our daily tasks, to live our faith in the actions of everyday life and to give more space to the Lord in our lives, to pause to contemplate his face. Thank you.

Pope Francis  01.05.13 General Audience St Peter’s Square

Dearest brethren, sons and daughters!

Today’s feast invites us to meditate about Saint Joseph, Our Lord Jesus’ legal and foster father. Because of that function which he performed in regard to Christ during his childhood and youth, he has been declared Patron or Protector of the Church, which continues Christ’s image and mission in time and reflects them in history.

At first sight there seems to be no material for a meditation on Joseph, for what do we know of him, apart from his name and a few events that occurred in Our Lord’s childhood? The Gospel does not record a single word from him; his language is silence. It was his attention to the angelic voices which spoke in his sleep; it was that prompt and generous obedience which was demanded from him; it was manual labour, in the most modest and fatiguing of forms, which earned Jesus the reputation of being “the son of the carpenter” (Mt. 13:55). There, is nothing else known of him, and it might well be said that he lived an unknown life, the life of a simple artisan, with no sign of personal greatness.

But that humble figure which was so near to Jesus and Mary, Christ’s Virgin Mother, he who was so intimately connected with their life and so closely linked with the genealogy of the Messias as to be the fateful and conclusive representative of the descendants of David (Mt. 1, 20), is revealed as being full of significance if we look at him attentively. He is seen truly to possess those qualities which the Church attributes to him in her liturgy, which the devotion of the faithful also attributes to him, and which gave rise to a series of invocations that have taken the form of a litany.

A celebrated modern shrine of the saint, erected through the efforts of a simple lay brother, Brother André of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, at Montreal in Canada, illustrates those qualities in a series of chapels arranged behind the high altar. All the chapels are dedicated to Saint Joseph in honour of the many titles which have been offered to him, such as Protector of Childhood, Protector of Spouses, Protector of the Family, Protector of the Workers, Protector of Virgins, Protector of Fugitives, Protector of the Dying…

If we look carefully into this life that was apparently so unremarkable, we shall find that it was greater and more adventurous, more full of exciting events, than we are accustomed to assume in our hasty perusal of the Gospel story. The Gospel describes Saint Joseph as a Just Man (Mt. 1:19). No greater praise of virtue and no higher tribute to merit could be applied to a man of humble social condition who was apparently far from being equipped to perform great deeds. A poor, honest, hardworking, perhaps even timorous man, but one with unfathomable interior life, from which very singular directions and consolations came, bringing him also the logic and strength that belong to simple and clear souls, and giving him the power of making great decisions, such as that decision to put his liberty at once at the disposition of the divine designs, to make over to them also his legitimate human calling, his conjugal happiness, to accept the conditions, the responsibility and the burden of a family, but, through an incomparable virginal love, to renounce that natural conjugal love that is the foundation and the nourishment of the family; in this way he offered the whole of his existence in a total sacrifice to the imponderable demands raised by the astonishing coming of the Messias, to whom he was to give the everlastingly blessed name of Jesus (Mt. 1:21), whom he was to acknowledge as the effect of the Holy Spirit, and his own son only in a juridical and domestic way.

So Saint Joseph was a “committed” man, as we might say nowadays.

And what commitment! Total commitment to Mary, the elect of all the women of the earth and of history, always his virgin spouse, never his wife physically, and total commitment to Jesus, who was his offspring only by legal descendance, not by the flesh. He had the burdens, the responsibilities, the risks and the labours Surrounding the holy family. His was the service, the work, the sacrifice, in the shadows of that gospel picture in which we love to meditate on him; and we are certainly not mistaken, for we all know him now and call him Blessed.

This is Gospel in which the values of human existence take on a different dimension from that with which we are accustomed to appreciate them. What is little becomes big, and in this connection we do well to remember Jesus’ fervent words in the eleventh chapter of Saint Matthew: “I give thee praise, O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, because thou hast hidden these things (the things or the kingdom of the Messias!) from the wise and learned, but hast revealed them to little ones”.

In the Gospel’s account, what is lowly becomes worthy to be the social condition of the Son of God made son of man; that which is elementary and the product of fatiguing and rudimentary handwork served to train the maker and continuator of the cosmos in the skills of human hands (cf. Jn. 1:3; 5:17), and to give humble bread to him who was to describe Himself as “the Bread of Life” (Jn. 6:48); what was lost for love of Christ is here rediscovered (cf. Mt. 10:39), and whoever sacrifices his own life for Him in this world saves it for everlasting life (Jn. 12:25).

Saint Joseph was the type of the message of that Gospel that Jesus was to announce as the programme in the redemption of mankind, once he left the little workshop at Nazareth and began his mission as prophet and teacher. Saint Joseph is the model of those humble ones that Christianity raises to great destinies, and he is the proof that in order to be good and genuine followers of Christ there is no need of “great things”; it is enough to have the common, simple, human virtues, but they need to be true and authentic.

Our meditation now shifts from the humble Saint to our own personal circumstances, as is usual in the practice of mental prayer. We now turn to make a comparison and I contrast between him and ourselves; we have no reason to feel proud of the comparison, but we can derive some good suggestion from it for imitating him in some way which our own life condition allows, in our spirit and in concrete practice of those virtues which are so vigorously depicted in the Saint, and one especially, poverty, of which there is so much talk nowadays. And let us not be upset by the difficulties which poverty brings with it today, in this world which is all devoted to conquest of economic wealth, as if poverty were in contradiction with the line of progress which must be followed, a paradox, an unreality in a society of welfare and consumption.

Let us think again of Saint Joseph in his poverty and hard work, all his energy engaged in the effort of earning something to live on, and let us then remember that economic goods are indeed worthy of our Christian interest, on condition that they do not become ends in themselves, but are understood and used as means to keep going life which is directed towards other and higher goods, on condition that economic goods are not sought after with greedy egoism, but be rather a source and stimulus of provident charity, on condition again that they be not used as authorization for soft and easy indulgence in the so-called pleasures of life but rather be used for the broad and honest interests of the common good.

This Saint’s laborious and dignified poverty, can still be in excellent guide for us to follow the path traced by Christ’s footsteps in the modern world, and can also eloquently instruct us in positive and honest well-being, so that we may avoid losing Christ’s path in the complicated and giddy world of economics, to avoid going too far on one side into tempting ambitions of conquest of temporal riches, and too far on the other side, into making use of poverty for ideological ends, as a power to rouse social hatred and systematic subversion.

So, Saint Joseph is an example for us, and let us try to imitate him; and we shall call upon him as our protector, as the Church has been wont to do in these recent times, for herself in the first place, for spontaneous theological reflection on the marriage of divine with human action in the great economy of the Redemption, in which economy the first, the divine one is wholly sufficient to itself, but the second, human action, which is ours, though capable of nothing (cf. Jn. 15:5), is never dispensed from humble but conditional and ennobling collaboration.

The Church also calls upon him as her Protector because of a profound and most present desire to reinvigorate her ancient life with true evangelical virtues, such as shine forth in Saint Joseph. Finally, the Church invokes him as her Patron and Protector through her unshakeable trust that he to whom Christ willed to confide the care and protection of His. own frail human childhood, will continue from heaven to perform his protective task in order to guide and defend the Mystical Body of Christ Himself, which is always weak, always under attack, always in a state of peril. Finally, we call upon Saint Joseph for the world, trusting that the heart of the humble working man of Nazareth, now overflowing with immeasurable wisdom and power, still harbours and will always harbour a singular and precious fellow-feeling for the whole of mankind. So may it be.

Pope Paul VI
Homily on the Feast of Saint Joseph
27 March 1969

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

I want to turn again during this year of St. Joseph, which Pope Francis proclaimed, to the saint himself. “WITH A FATHER’S HEART: that is how Joseph loved Jesus, whom all four Gospels refer to as “the son of Joseph”.” With these words Pope Francis begins his letter Patris Corde in which he proclaimed the year of St. Joseph. Joseph is truly called the father of Jesus in the Gospel stories, all of which acknowledge that Joseph is not what we may call the “biological father” of Jesus. Rather, his fatherhood is characterized by everything else that makes a man a father. In the letter, Patris Corde, Pope Francis identifies seven aspects of the fatherhood of Joseph to reflect upon. I encourage you to read this letter, it is not too long and is mostly a meditation on Scripture. 

One aspect of this year of St. Joseph to which I want to draw our attention is that Joseph can be a father to all of us as well. In receiving him as our father we can learn to live and to rest more fully as a daughter or son of God the Father. Jesus is the only-begotten Son of the Father, this is His truest identity. Our adoption as daughters and sons of the Father, which is effected in Baptism, is the essence of the Christian life. To be a Christian precedes doing Christian things (such as prayer, worship, service to others, etc.). This is a truth that can easily become lost or forgotten, especially in our very driven, goal and achievement-oriented society. 

We are always in need of a loving and tender father, like St. Joseph, who can reveal more fully to us the love of God the Father. Our own earthly fathers, whether they are/were the best of men or not, are the first to teach us about our heavenly Father. There are also others along the way who are fathers to us, who show us something more about the way that our heavenly Father loves and cares for us. 

My writing here is meant to be an invitation to ask St. Joseph to be a father to each of us as he was and is a father to Jesus. And an invitation to receive from Joseph, a spiritual father, our sonship or daughterhood.
 

Fr. Scott Nolan
Pastor
St. Stephen Parish
723 Rosewood Ave SE
East Grand Rapids, MI 49506

We are nearing the end of our Lenten journey. In one week we begin Holy Week with Palm Sunday and then on Good Friday we walk with Christ in His Passion and Death; finally celebrating Easter Sunday, the greatest feast day of our faith, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 

What else do we need to finish our Lenten journey with Jesus? Who might we turn to for further encouragement, advice, and guidance? 

St Teresa of Avila, a great Doctor of the church, had a very strong devotion to St Joseph and to our Blessed Virgin Mary. 

During a period of desolation in St Teresa’s life, she was not only very distraught over her sinfulness but was also experiencing a great many problems in the establishment of one of her convents.

One day during Mass, on the feast of the Assumption, St. Teresa had a vision. She felt a white robe being placed around her shoulders, and when she turned to look, she saw the Blessed Virgin Mary on her right, and St Joseph on her left. —The white robe signified the forgiving of her sins—. 

In the vision, Mary took Teresa’s hands into her own, and told her that it gave her great pleasure that she was serving St Joseph, and that the convent would serve both St Joseph and Mary very well. St Teresa had a great understanding of Mary’s role in the salvation of souls by the fact that Our Lady was present in Christ’s suffering and walked with him throughout his passion and death. 

Of St Joseph she wrote in her autobiography:

“I do not remember that I have ever asked anything of St Joseph, which he has failed to grant.” 

As we move toward the last part of our Lenten journey, let us turn to the examples of St Joseph and our Blessed Virgin Mary to accept Jesus’s will for us in our lives and to have the courage to follow through on whatever He asks us to endure and accomplish. 

Recently, Father Max gave a reflection to the young adults of our parish during a Friday night Lucernarium. The message was simple, ‘Jesus suffered greatly because he loved greatly.’ 

Jesus is calling us to love greatly.  He’s calling us to show true sorrow for our sins and to conversion of our hearts.  He is calling us to trust in him even when there is suffering and challenges in our life.  We can turn to St Joseph and our Blessed Virgin Mary as examples of how to love deeply and accept the suffering and challenges before us. 

St Joseph was considered to be a just man because he followed the laws of his faith very deeply, and he took his responsibilities very seriously. When he learned that Mary was pregnant with a child that was not his, he sought to follow the laws of his faith in a way that would not put Mary to shame; however, as we know, an angel appeared to Joseph and explained to him that Mary was carrying the Son of God. Joseph was not only obedient in accepting what the angel was telling him, but he had great courage to meet the responsibility that was placed before him. 

And we know the story doesn’t end there. Joseph was visited several other times by an angel, where he needed to act quickly and with courage to save Mary and Jesus from destruction. 

We will need courage like that of St Joseph to walk along with Jesus on our Lenten journey in order to seek true contrition for our sins and understand the great mercy and love that Jesus has for us. 

Our Blessed Virgin Mary told St Teresa of Avila to turn to St Joseph for guidance and protection as she did in her own life.  Mary is also, herself, the ultimate example, guide and role model of how we are to walk with Christ this Lenten season.  

We need only to turn to the sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary for Mary’s guidance.  Let us turn to Mary and ask her to help us experience sorrow of the suffering of her son; in his Agony in the Garden, his scourging at the pillar, his crowning with thorns, his carrying of the cross and his crucifixion and death.  

During Holy Week, let us invite Mary to join us in our walk with Jesus, seeking her guidance to develop true sorrow for our sins in our thoughts and words, our sins of pride – and for what we have done and in what we have failed to do.  Let us ask her to help us experience the sorrow that she felt as she watched her only son give his life -for our salvation, and to beg her to make us good sons and daughters to her. 

My prayer for us during this final journey of lent is for the Blessed Virgin to be on our right, and St Joseph on our left to give us courage to accept God’s will; to love deeply, to feel sorrow for our sins, and to endure any hardships or sufferings, trusting that the Lord will make good come out of bad as we prepare for the ultimate celebration on Easter morning. 

Amen

Deacon David Krajewski
St. Joseph Parish
Battle Creek, MI

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.