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The Mission of St. Joseph

Sr. JosephMary f.t.i. — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:00:01 +0000

Ave Maria Meditations

And Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary,

of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ. (Mt.1:16)

Among the Jews, as among other peoples of nomadic origin, the genealogical tree was of vital importance. A person was known fundamentally of the clan or tribe to which he belonged rather than by the place where he lived. Among the Hebrews we have the added circumstances of belonging to the chosen people through ties of a person’s ancestry being traced through the male. Joseph, as the husband of Mary, was the legal father of Jesus and, as such, carried the duties of a true father. Joseph, like Mary, was of the house and family of David of whom would be born the Messiah.

It would also be Joseph’s responsibility to name the Word incarnate, in accordance with the instructions given him by the angel: You shall call his name Jesus.

God had foreseen that his Son would be born of the Virgin Mary, in a family just like any other, and that in her he would develop in his humanity. The life of Jesus had to be in this respect the same as that of other men. He was to be born defenseless, in need of a father who would protect him and teach him the things that all fathers should teach their sons. The essence and ultimate meaning of Joseph’s life had to lie in the fulfillment of his mission as Mary’s husband and as the father of Jesus. He was born into the world to act as the father of Jesus and to be Mary’s most chaste spouse, in the same way that every person who comes into the world has a specific vocation from God, in which is rooted the whole meaning of his life.

When the angel revealed to him the mystery of the virgin birth of Jesus, Joseph quietly accepted the vocation to which he was to remain faithful until death. St Joseph’s whole glory and happiness lay in his knowing how to understand what God wanted of him and in his having faithfully carried it out to the end.

Let us contemplate Joseph at the side of the Blessed Virgin, who is with child and soon to give birth to her only begotten Son. And let us resolve to spend the time of Christmas at St Joseph’s side, a place as unnoticed as it is privileged: How good Joseph is!

Joseph’s relations with Jesus:

Joseph, we read in a sermon of St Augustine, not only claims the name of father, but has a greater claim to it than any other. And then he adds: How was he a father? All the more effectively, the more chaste the paternity. Some thought that he was the father of our Lord Jesus Christ in the same way as other fathers, who beget sons of the flesh and do not receive them only as the fruit of a spiritual love. This is why St Luke says: ‘he was thought to be the father of Jesus.

St Joseph was deeply in love With Mary. He must have loved her so much and with such generosity of heart that, when he learned of her desire to preserve the consecration she had made to God, he agreed to marry her. He would rather renounce having children than live apart from the woman he loved. His was a pure, refined and deep love. It was full of respect with no hint of selfishness. God himself had definitively sealed their union with a new and even stronger bond, which was their joint earthly mission of bringing up the Messiah. And they had already been betrothed, which was why the angel had said: Do not be afraid to take Mary to be ‘your wife’.

What kind of relationship would Joseph have had with Jesus? Joseph loved Jesus as a father loves his son and showed his love by giving him the best he had. Joseph, caring for the child as he had been commanded, made Jesus a craftsman, transmitting his own skill to him. So the neighbors in Nazareth would call Jesus the son of the craftsman. Jesus worked in Joseph’s workshop and by Joseph’s side. What sort of man must Joseph have been, and how must grace have been active in him, that he was able to carry out the task of bringing up the Son of God?

For Jesus must have resembled Joseph: in his way of working, in the traits of his character and in his way of speaking. Jesus’ realism, his eye for detail, the way he sat at table and broke bread, his preference for using everyday situations in his teaching – all this reflects his childhood and the influence of Joseph.

We stay close to Joseph as we meditate on the approaching Nativity. He only asks us to be simple and humble in our contemplation of Mary and her son. There is no room for the proud in that little group in Bethlehem.

Go to Joseph, so that he may teach us to live side by side with Jesus and Mary:

Joseph is only a silent witness to the Holy Maternity. Joseph, full of admiration, unspeaking and respectful, contemplates the child and its mother. After Mary, he was the first person to see the Son of God made man. No one could have experienced more happiness than he when he took in his arms the Messiah, who in no visible way could be distinguished from any other child. Initially, Joseph’s participation in the mystery had come about through the knowledge given him by the angel’s revelation of the mission he was to carry out for these two exceptional people.

St Joseph was present later when the shepherds arrived. He saw them approach the cave, timid and curious, to see for themselves the ‘babe wrapped in swaddling clothes’. He heard them explain to Mary about the apparition of the heavenly messenger who had told them about the birth of the Savior in Bethlehem and about the sign by which they would recognize him, describing how a multitude of angels had gathered with this first herald envoy, glorifying God and promising peace on earth to men of good will … Joseph also contemplated the radiant happiness of the woman who was his wife, this marvelous lady who had been entrusted into his keeping. Enthralled by the way she gazed at her son, he saw her own unspeakable joy, her own overflowing love, her every gesture so full of exquisite tenderness and meaning.

If we stay close to Joseph during these few days between now and Christmas, he will help us to contemplate this tremendous mystery of which he was a silent witness and to gaze lovingly at Mary as she holds in her arms the Son of God made man.

From the very start Saint Joseph grasped the fact that his whole reason for living was this child, precisely because he was a child, and as such, in need of help and protection, as Mary was too, for God himself had commissioned him to take her into his home and give her protection.

How grateful Jesus would be for all the vigilance and attention that Joseph paid to Mary. That is why the Church has always paid him great tribute and been fervent in his praise, having recourse to him in times of greatest difficulty. Saint Joseph, pray for them (for our loved ones), pray for me (for I too need your help). In whatever need, the Holy Patriarch, together with the Blessed Virgin, will hear our prayers. Today, we ask him to make us simple of heart so that we will know how to show our love for the child Jesus as he did.

From “In Conversation with God” by Fr. Francis Fernandez

…Joseph likewise draws near to adore. The earthly shadow of the Eternal Father rests softly on the Child. Joseph draws near, that most hidden of all God’s saints. His soul is an abyss nameless graces, of graces deeper than those from which ordinary virtues spring. We can give no name to the character of his sanctity. We cannot compare him with any other of saints of God. As his office was unshared, so was his grace. It followed the peculiarities of his office; it stood alone.

He stood to Jesus visibly in the place of the Eternal Father. The human soul of Jesus must have regarded him not only with the tenderest love but also with deep reverence and an inexplicable submission. Meek and gentle, blameless and loving as St. Joseph was, it is not possible to think of him without extreme awe, because of that identity with the Eternal Father which belongs to him We cannot describe his holiness, because we have no term of comparison. It was not only higher in degree than that of the saints but it was different in kind. But it was eminently hidden in God.

From “Bethlehem” by Father Faber

MEDITATION FROM ST. PETER JULIAN EYMARD (to be an adorer like St. Joseph): But I think it is no less necessary to leave in the hands of Divine Providence the care of our spiritual life and of our perfection; for it is nothing else than our excessive solicitude for ourselves that makes us lose our peace of mind and puts us into strange and changeable moods. When we commit a fault, however small, we think that everything is lost. You may be so often troubled with dryness that you are not close to God Who is so full of consolation… we must be like St. Joseph, who was calm in trial and leave it to the Lord to free us when it pleases Him. (Sadness returns as we fall back on ourselves and cease to dwell on the thought of Our Lord’s goodness)

I love you, St. Joseph…

And Jesus and Mary too!

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Our Lady’s Vocation and Our Example

Sr. JosephMary f.t.i. — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 20:00:02 +0000

Ave Maria Meditations:

The Blessed Virgin chosen from eternity: Her vocation.

We are now very close to Christmas. The prophecy of Isaiah is now about to be fulfilled: the maiden is with child and will soon give birth to a son whom she will call Emmanuel, a name which means ‘God is with us’. The Hebrew people were familiar with the prophecies which singled out the descendants of Jacob, through David, as bearers of the Messianic promises. But they could not imagine that the Messiah would be God himself made man. But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman. And this woman, chosen and predestined from all eternity to be the mother of the Savior, had consecrated her virginity to God, renouncing the honor of counting the Messiah among her direct descendants.

We can obtain great benefits at this time by keeping close to Our Lady and showing our love for her.

Mary appears as the virgin Mother of the Messiah, she who will give all her love to Jesus, with an undivided heart, as the prototype of that self-surrender that Our Lord will ask from many souls. The Virgin gives her full consent to the divine will: Be it done unto me according to your word. From this moment on, she accepts her vocation and begins to put it into practice. Her vocation is to be Mother of God and Mother of men..

Unknown to anyone, the hub of human history and the centre of all mankind is now the little village of Nazareth. Here lives the woman most loved by God, she who is to be the most loved human being in the whole world, the most frequently invoked and called upon of all time. And we, in the intimacy of our heartfelt prayer, say: ‘Mother! Blessed art thou among all women.’

In the exercise of her Motherhood she was adorned with all the graces and privileges which made her a worthy abode for the Most High. God chose His Mother and put in her all his love and power. He did not permit there to be in her the least taint of sin, neither original nor personal. She was conceived Immaculate, without any stain at all. And He granted her so much grace that under God, it would be impossible to conceive of anyone greater than she: such was to be her state that no one, apart from God, could even begin to comprehend it. Her dignity is almost infinite.

All these privileges and graces were given to her so that she could carry out her vocation. As with each individual, her vocation was the central moment of her life: She was born to be the Mother of God, chosen by the Blessed Trinity from all eternity. She is our Mother too, a fact which, in this season, we want constantly to keep in mind.

Our vocation and corresponding to it

For each one of us, our vocation is the central theme of our lives. It is the axis around which everything else turns. Everything, or almost everything, depends on our knowing and carrying out what God asks of us. To follow and to love one’s own vocation is the most important and joyfully fulfilling thing in life. But in spite of its being the key that opens the door to happiness, there are many who do not want to know what their vocation is. They prefer to do what pleases them, to do their own will instead of God’s will, to remain in a state of culpable ignorance instead of seeking in all sincerity the road that will lead them to happiness and enable them to reach heaven in safety as well as to bring this same joy to many others.

Our Lord calls every one of us by our own name, today as much as ever. He needs us, it seems. Furthermore He calls all of us to a holy vocation, a vocation to follow him in a new life whose secret He alone possesses: if any man would come after me … Through Baptism we have all received a vocation to seek God in the fullness of love. For the ordinary life of man among his fellows is not something dull and uninteresting. It is there, in their ordinary lives, that God wants the vast majority of his children to achieve sanctity.

It is important to keep reminding ourselves that Jesus did not address himself to a privileged set of people; he came to reveal to us the universal love of God. God loves all men, and he wants all men to love him – everyone, whatever his personal situation, his social position, his work. Ordinary life is something of great value. All the ways of the earth can be an opportunity to meet Christ, who calls us to identify ourselves with him and carry out this divine mission – right where He finds us.

God calls us through what happens in the ordinary course of our day: through the sorrows and joys of the people we live with, through the human interests of all our colleagues and the things that go to make up our family life. He also calls us through the great problems, conflicts and challenges of each period of history, the portentous events that attract the interest and idealism of a large part of mankind.

The call of Our Lord urges us to a greater self-giving, for among other reasons, the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. And there are harvests which perish daily because there is no one to gather them in. Be it done unto me according to your word, says Our Lady. And we contemplate her, radiant with joy. As we raise up our minds and hearts in prayer, we can enquire of ourselves: Am I seeking God in my work or in my study, in my family, out in the street…in everything? Am I daring in doing apostolate? Does Our Lord want more of me?

Imitating Our Lady in her spirit of service to others

To God’s will, Our Lady has but one reaction: to love it. Proclaiming herself the handmaid of the Lord, she accepted without any reservation whatever. In the world of antiquity, in which slavery; the lot of the servant, was a common condition, this expression of Mary is seen in all its force and depth. The slave, one can say, did not have a will of his own, nor could he have any desire independent of his master’s . Our Lady agrees with the greatest joy and with all her heart to have no other wish than that of her Master and Lord. She gives herself to Him unreservedly, without condition.

We also, in imitation of Our Lady, do not want to have any other will, or any plans other than those of God. And we want this in the things that are obviously of transcendent importance for us, that is, in our vocation to sanctity and also in what immediately relates to it in the ordinary little things of every day, the mundane details of our work, our family life and our social relations

One of the mysteries of Advent is that on which we meditate in the second Joyful Mystery of the Rosary, namely, the Visitation. Let us focus in our consideration of it on one specific aspect of service to others which is part of our vocation: the order of charity.

This visit of our Mother to her cousin St Elizabeth presents one outstanding manifestation of the order of charity. We must love all men because they are all, or can be, sons of God. But we must love in the first place those who are closest to us, those with whom we have special ties, such as members of our families. This caritas must be shown by deeds, not only by affection or fondness. Let us think now of our dealings with our family, of the numberless opportunities that come our way of exercising, quite normally and naturally, our love and spirit of service.

We would like to live these days of Advent with the same spirit of service as our Mother had during her time of expectant waiting. Supported by the humble self giving of Mary, let us ask her (like good children) to help us, so that when Our Lord comes our hearts may, with complete generosity, be ready to receive his commands, his counsels and his suggestions.

Let us ask the blessed Virgin to make us contemplatives, to teach us to recognize the constant calls from God when he knocks at the door of our heart. Let us ask her now: Mother, you brought into the world Jesus, who reveals to us the love of our Father God. Help us to recognize Him in the midst of the cares of each day. Stir up our minds and our wills, so that we may be ready to listen to the voice of God, to the calls of grace.

Fr. Francis Fernandez

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