Well, the big day is here! It is hard to imagine how excited I am at this time! I am using exclamation points with joy! Today we celebrate the Solemnity of St. Joseph, Husband of Mary!!! We also celebrate the founding of our Diocese of San Jose as we enter into the 40th Year as a Jubilee Year celebrating our Journeying Together in Hope as a people united in the love of Jesus Christ.
Looking towards the blessing of St. Joseph as husband of Mary I would like to reflect on Pope Leo XIII encyclical “Quamquam Pluries” on the devotion to St. Joseph as Patron of the Church. From this call the Church looks to St. Joseph “for singular benefit from his patronage and protection, are that Joseph was the spouse of Mary and that he was reputed the Father of Jesus Christ. From these sources have sprung his dignity, his holiness, his glory.” (#3) It is clear and true that we see St. Joseph through the gift of Jesus and his wife Mary. It is not the losing of his person but rather the completion of the person God the Father called forth to go on a mission to care for the Virgin Mother and the Son of God. This is the central point of our lives, when we choose to live in service of love we don’t disappear and fade away but rather we become truly who we are created to be in the eyes of our Creator God. Joseph grew in stature and holiness the closer embraced his role as father and husband, he grew in gentleness and humility the more he chose Mary in daily acts of love and service and in the caring and protecting the Holy Family.

This is what Pope Leo reminded the Church when he wrote, “But as Joseph has been united to the Blessed Virgin by the ties of marriage, it may not be doubted that he approached nearer than any to the eminent dignity by which the Mother of God surpasses so nobly all created natures. For marriage is the most intimate of all unions which from its essence imparts a community of gifts between those that by it are joined together.” (QP #3) St. Joseph in his calling to be husband of our Blessed Mother, the Mother of God, becomes fully into his dignity as a human in choosing to love and enter into the service of someone greater, even when the greater is a small and vulnerable child he is called to protect. Are we willing to follow the example of St. Joseph? It is a reminder that story God desires us to live is the story of a call, a vocation of love, mercy and holiness: to become the saint.
When we truly are able to embrace this vocation, accept the call to holiness, choose the blessings and give them away without cost, then we live a true and holy life. It is the most fulfilling moment when we see our story for a brief moment, a story which draws us forward in the darkness where we allow and trust Jesus to light a path just a few steps at a time. Pope Francis is his great love letter “Amoris Laetitia: The Joy of Love” reminds of the vocation of the Holy Family when he shares with the Church, “With a gaze of faith and love, grace and fidelity, we have contemplated the relationship between human families and the divine Trinity. The word of God tells us that the family is entrusted to a man, a woman and their children, so that they may become a communion of persons in the image of the union of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Begetting and raising children, for its part, mirrors God’s creative work. The family is called to join in daily prayer, to read the word of God and to share in Eucharistic Communion, and thus to grow in love and become ever more fully a temple in which the Spirit dwells.” (AL #29) St. Joseph, with Mary, lived this Eucharistic communion even before the night of the Last Supper because in their midst was the living Eucharist, Jesus Christ. Each time St. Joseph held the child Jesus, he embraced the Eucharist just as we are invited to do when we come forward, not worthy to receive but are healed in the Word of God. It is when, like St. Joseph we embrace our Mother Mary we see the truth of who Jesus is in our lives.

“Thus in giving Joseph the Blessed Virgin as spouse, God appointed him to be not only her life’s companion, the witness of her maidenhood, the protector of her honour, but also, by virtue of the conjugal tie, a participator in her sublime dignity. And Joseph shines among all mankind by the most august dignity, since by divine will, he was the guardian of the Son of God and reputed as His father among men.” (QP #3) What mission has God given you? Like Joseph we are all given a mission and if we embrace the mission then we shine as holy witnesses of God’s love. This is the natural outcome of our following the will of God. Being a saint, is being, like St. Joseph, willing to do the small things with great care and love, the daily chores that may seem mundane but bless those around us and open our heart to care and peace. When seek and allow the dignity of others to grow within our soul, as husbands and wives are called to do in the Sacrament of Marriage, then our own dignity strengthens and invites others into a relationship with God in the Most Holy Trinity’s loving graces.

Pope Leo XIII ends paragraph three of his Encyclical with this simple stated reason of why St. Jospeh is called Patron of the Church, “It is, then, natural and worthy that as the Blessed Joseph ministered to all the needs of the family at Nazareth and girt it about with his protection, he should now cover with the cloak of his heavenly patronage and defend the Church of Jesus Christ.” (QP #3)
St. Joseph, Husband of Mary….pray for us

God bless
Fr. Mark

http://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15081889_quamquam-pluries.html

http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20160319_amoris-laetitia.html

The fatherhood of St. Joseph is one of the most interesting aspects of his life I like to meditate on in prayer. Like last weeks article, the gaze of the father upon a son, shows a deep devotion and love that expands the heart of both parent and child. As part of Worldwide Marriage Encounter I remember one presentation that struck me deeply. The couple presenting talked about their relationship with their children and how we often talk mostly about what we want them to do in life and not who we want them to be. This came back to me once more in a reflection by Archbishop M. de Langalerie, a 19th century French bishop from his book “The Month of St. Joseph” which I am praying with during the month of March. He writes, “Christian parents, such should be your spirit, “Here we have no lasting city” (Hebrews 13:14). Your children are given you more for the purpose of fitting them for heaven than of qualifying them for earthly positions.” (p 32)
This is a reminder of what we desire for children and what the “duty” of the parents are both father and mother. If we believe that each child is created in the image and likeness of God, then we desire each child to be a saint, to strive for holiness and to be at peace with God and our fellow sisters and brothers in our life. This is not only what St. Joseph strove for but also what he lived as he worked, supported and cared for the child Jesus within the Holy Family.

What do we hope for our children? And more broadly: what do we hope for all people?
Pope St. John Paul II shares with us from “Redemptoris Custos” this thought, “What is crucially important here is the sanctification of daily life, a sanctification which each person must acquire according to his or her own state, and one which can be promoted according to a model accessible to all people: “St. Joseph is the model of those humble ones that Christianity raises up to great destinies;…he is the proof that in order to be a good and genuine follower of Christ, there is no need of great things-it is enough to have the common, simple and human virtues, but they need to be true and authentic.”(#24)
The Catholic Church understands and honors the labor we do and calls it necessary and important in the life of each person. Yet in the same way, our daily work does not define us nor limit us in the service of God’s blessing and grace. As St. Joseph labored and showed the child Jesus the dignity of work, he “at the workbench where he plied his trade together with Jesus, Joseph brought human work closer to the mystery of the Redemption.” (#22)

St. Joseph not only shows the dignity and honor in work as a father, husband and man but unites it with the Divine in doing the work not for his satisfaction but for the glory and blessing of God in caring for the family. As parents preparing children for the eternal, each family is called to be a domestic church fostering holiness and leading children to a path of recognizing not just the dignity of work but also in an important and vital way how our work brings blessings to others when we see God in our daily tasks. Each parent wants their children to be successful, but so also each parent would desire their child live a life of holiness in the blessing of others.
This desire for holiness should be marked but our lives too in the example of the call to holiness over and over again.
It begins with recognizing how God loves us and draws forth blessings from both the exciting and mundane of life when we choose to seek Him rather than the quick bite of pleasure or the momentary tickle of delight. Deep and abiding happiness and holiness comes from the call to be of service to another…a spouse, a child, a parent, a friend and an enemy. (St. Joseph) “was inspired by his love for his family, for Jesus and Mary, and frequently by love for his fellow men and by his noble desire to be to service to them and assist them.” (p 112 Fr. Maurice Meschler from “The Truth About St. Joseph)
God Bless
Fr. Mark

Gracias a su banco de trabajo sobre el que ejercía su profesión con Jesús, José acercó el trabajo humano al misterio de la redención. (#22)

«San José es el modelo de los humildes, que el cristianismo eleva a grandes destinos; san José es la prueba de que para ser buenos y auténticos seguidores de Cristo no se necesitan “grandes cosas”, sino que se requieren solamente las virtudes comunes, humanas, sencillas, pero verdaderas y auténticas» (#24).

“If the Father had looked at you with His ineffable gaze just once, it would suffice for you to be eternally grateful. Yet this gaze is constant and everlasting.” (p 143 from “Under the Gaze of the Father”)
As we continue to reflect on the life of St. Joseph, I read these words in my Holy Hour and I thought; what must have been the blessing of Joseph, during his life, to be under the constant gaze of the Father and the Son of the Most Holy Trinity? It is not a gaze of condemnation or of seeking the weakness and brokenness of our human condition, rather it is the gaze of love, joy and the searching gaze of hope and peace. “To live under the gaze of the Father is to receive His gift constantly; it is to possess Jesus, the end and precious fruit of this gaze…Thus your soul lives under the gaze of the Father, enveloped in His light, bathed in His fruitfulness, intimately and sweetly joined to Jesus.” (p 143-44) Archbishop Luis Martinez in writing these reflections for a retreat given to Blessed Concepción Cabrera de Armida shows us a deep and beautiful understanding of living in obedient love to God’s will in our life.

We know from Sacred Scripture how St. Joseph on following the command of the Angel turned towards the obedient love written upon his heart, taking the law and turning it into an act of trust as he accepted our Blessed Mother and the Child growing in her womb into his life. Under the gaze of the Father, this action of love turned his heart into a heart that could only expand in love. And this is our St. Joseph challenge…to expand our heart under the gaze of God.
We can often find this difficult as we struggle to see the person of Jesus in those around us (and in ourselves at times) with our doubts and fears blinding us to the greater possibility of life in gracious love. I can imagine Joseph, seeing Mary pregnant and choosing to see Jesus within her. Choosing to erase the doubts and fears, the humiliation and scandal of the moment and embracing the grace in front of him. I often think and place myself in this moment, the embrace followed by such joy and grace as the blessing of God’s gentle and fruitful gaze blazed a fire of love in the hearts of the Holy Family united and blessed.
Pope St. John Paul II reminds us in “Redemptoris Custos,” “From the beginning, Joseph accepted with the “obedience of faith” his human fatherhood over Jesus. And thus, following the light of the Holy Spirit who gives himself to human beings through faith, he certainly came to discover ever more fully the indescribable gift that was his human fatherhood.” (# 21)
As husband and earthly father we can imagine the gaze of St. Joseph becoming more and more the gaze of God the Father as he saw in Mary’s eyes the window into the Divine life growing in her womb. We can only imagine how his gaze stretched and re-stretched his heart each time the child Jesus looked into his eyes and Joseph encountered pure and joyful love. We are asked, like St. Joseph, to gaze into the windows of Mother Mary’s eyes and into the Divine eyes of love found in the Eucharistic gaze of our adoration of the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity placed upon the altar of worship.
In being obedient to God’s will, to God’s call to love, to God’s abundant blessings we are invited into caring for others as St. Joseph cared for his wife and the child Jesus. Fr. Meschler in his book, “The Truth About St. Joseph” reminds us of the humility accepting to care for another. “So, too, when St. Joseph’s authority was exercised, it was done in all humility. It has already been remarked that authority makes people humble. Who had a better heart than Joseph? His authority, moreover, extended to God and the Mother of God. Again, no one commands better than he who obeys exactly. Joseph was a man of perfect obedience and submissiveness to all properly constituted authority, but above all to God.” (p 63)
Our obedience to love humbles us into the grace of service. Jesus reminds us very clearly of the call to service and the blessings when he speaks these words to us, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” (Mk 10:45) Living our lives within the gaze of the Father is an invitation to life. The courage and humility to join in the life of grace and love is our constant challenge and the hope of unity with the Most Holy Trinity, the communion of saints and choirs of angels in heaven in our celebrations of holiness and life.
“To live under the gazed of the Father is to live a fruitful life in divine light and eternal love; it is to possess Jesus and to give Him to souls in the splendor of the divine gaze.” (p 146)
God Bless
Fr. Mark