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