On St Joseph

From AmericanCatholic's Saint of the Day:

he Bible pays Joseph the highest compliment: he was a “just” man. The quality meant a lot more than faithfulness in paying debts.

When the Bible speaks of God “justifying” someone, it means that God, the all-holy or “righteous” One, so transforms a person that the individual shares somehow in God’s own holiness, and hence it is really “right” for God to love him or her. In other words, God is not playing games, acting as if we were lovable when we are not.

By saying Joseph was “just,” the Bible means that he was one who was completely open to all that God wanted to do for him. He became holy by opening himself totally to God.

The rest we can easily surmise. Think of the kind of love with which he wooed and won Mary, and the depth of the love they shared during their marriage.

It is no contradiction of Joseph’s manly holiness that he decided to divorce Mary when she was found to be with child. The important words of the Bible are that he planned to do this “quietly” because he was “a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame” (Matthew 1:19).

The just man was simply, joyfully, wholeheartedly obedient to God—in marrying Mary, in naming Jesus, in shepherding the precious pair to Egypt, in bringing them to Nazareth, in the undetermined number of years of quiet faith and courage.

Comment:

The Bible tells us nothing of Joseph in the years after the return to Nazareth except the incident of finding Jesus in the Temple (see Luke 2:41–51). Perhaps this can be taken to mean that God wants us to realize that the holiest family was like every other family, that the circumstances of life for the holiest family were like those of every family, so that when Jesus’ mysterious nature began to appear, people couldn’t believe that he came from such humble beginnings: “Is he not the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother named Mary...?” (Matthew 13:55a). It was almost as indignant as “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” (John 1:46b).

Quote:

“He was chosen by the eternal Father as the trustworthy guardian and protector of his greatest treasures, namely, his divine Son and Mary, Joseph’s wife. He carried out this vocation with complete fidelity until at last God called him, saying: ‘Good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord’” (St. Bernardine of Siena).


(This entry appears in the print edition of Saint of the Day.)


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From Opus Dei :

March 19, 2009
“Get to know Joseph and you will find Jesus”
Love Saint Joseph a lot. Love him with all your soul, because he, together with Jesus, is the person who has most loved our Blessed Lady and been closest to God. He is the person who has most loved God, after our Mother. He deserves your affection, and it will do you good to get to know him, because he is the Master of the interior life, and has great power before the Lord and before the Mother of God. (The Forge, 554)

In human life, Joseph was Jesus’ master in their daily contact, full of refined affection, glad to deny himself to take better care of Jesus. Isn’t that reason enough for us to consider this just man, this holy patriarch, in whom the faith of the old covenant bears fruit, as a master of interior life? Interior life is nothing but continual and direct conversation with Christ, so as to become one with him. And Joseph can tell us many things about Jesus. Therefore, never neglect devotion to him — Ite ad Ioseph: “Go to Joseph” — as christian tradition puts it in the words of the Old Testament.

A master of interior life, a worker deeply involved in his job, God’s servant in continual contact with Jesus: that is Joseph. Ite ad Ioseph. With St Joseph, the Christian learns what it means to belong to God and fully to assume one’s place among men, sanctifying the world. Get to know Joseph and you will find Jesus. Talk to Joseph and you will find Mary, who always sheds peace about her in that attractive workshop in Nazareth. (Christ is passing by, 56)

The whole Church recognizes St Joseph as a patron and guardian. For centuries many different features of his life have caught the attention of believers. He was a man ever faithful to the mission God gave him. That is why, for many years now, I have liked to address him affectionately as “our father and lord.”

St Joseph really is a father and lord. He protects those who revere him and accompanies them on their journey through this life — just as he protected and accompanied Jesus when he was growing up. (Christ is passing by, 39) [Top]

http://www.opusdei.us/art.php?p=12802

Essays in Theology

Essays in Theology

Dying, rising with Christ

thanks to Prinz Luv of Katoliko. I'm copying/pasting his post in the group:

Dying, rising with Christ
Written by Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, S.J.,

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Paul’s second epistle to the Corinthians dwells repeatedly on the threat of suffering and imminence of death in the apostle’s life and, by extension, in that of the Christian believer.

While complex — and perhaps an amalgamation of several shorter messages — in its present form, it is a letter of consolation that illustrates how the dying and rising of Christ is mysteriously at work in the inner being of each Christian (2 Corinthians 1:3-7).

When Paul was rescued by Christ from almost certain death (1:8-11), he experienced a foretaste of the victory God would one day give him through the coming resurrection.

Paul says he once regarded Jesus only “from a human point of view.” Now, however, after many encounters with the Risen Christ he has experienced the new way of life that faith makes possible. The only way to describe this new reality is by such a formula as “a new creation.” “Everything old,” Paul declared, “has passed away; see everything has become new” (5:16-17).

This changes not only one’s perception, but one’s behaviour; so that disciples “might live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died and was raised for them” (5:14-15).

Paul summed up Jesus’ sympathy for human frailty and incomprehension in a paradox expressing the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ’s incarnation: “though He was rich (in divine status), yet for your sakes He became poor (in entering the human condition), so that by His poverty you might become rich” (8:9).

Something that has fascinated Christians over the centuries is the meaning of an affliction Paul referred to near the conclusion of Second Corinthians (11:16-12:10).

While speaking of mystical graces accorded him by God (“a person in Christ who 14 years ago was caught up to the third heaven”), Paul went on to say that to keep him from being too elated “a thorn was given to me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me” (12:7).

Commentators have speculated on the nature of Paul’s “thorn in the flesh.” Identifications of it range from a bodily ailment (epilepsy, migraine, malaria, ophthalmia, a speech impediment) to something mental (bouts of depression, an experience of despair) or even spiritual (a temptation of some kind). Some focus on the term “messenger of Satan” and surmise Paul meant his persecutors or Christians who regarded him as a heretic. Whatever it was, the thorn in Paul’s flesh seems to have begun around the time of his visionary experience and continued up to the time of his writing this letter. Perhaps he needed to be brought down to Earth after his “rapture” (12:1-6).

Paul, however, did not see it that way. So, he three times prayed to be relieved of what humiliated him and seemed to interfere with the effectiveness of his ministry. The answer to Paul’s prayer taught him that the same God who had given him the spiritual experience had also given him the thorn.

Paul knew that many Corinthians — like others in the ancient world and even some people today — expected their religious leaders to have visions and revelations, tokens of God’s blessing. With this expectation, the Corinthians probably did not think visionaries would also be humbled by some affliction, an experience that we may characterize as the shame of the Cross.

Paul received his vision and revelations in the third or highest heaven, sometimes called Paradise. Paul did nothing to bring about such a mystical experience. Rather, it was given him by God. Nor would Paul permit himself to speak boastfully about it. For he had “heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat” (12:4).

Paul’s mystical journey came about entirely by God’s grace. Remarkably, the thorn in his flesh occasioned another revelation. In reply to Paul’s prayer, “the Lord” — doubtless this refers to Jesus — taught Paul a profound lesson, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (12:8-9).

Paul could have learned many lessons from suffering: that, borne patiently, suffering produces strength of character or that within oneself one may find inner resources to endure those afflictions that come with life. Instead, however, Paul was invited to look beyond himself and to see God’s power at work in the weakness of his human condition.

Not knowing precisely what Paul’s thorn in the flesh was, Christians in every era can identify with Paul’s frustration and need of divine assistance as they face their own experience of an unwanted “thorn in the flesh.” Likewise, disciples find themselves invited to make Paul’s conclusion their own, “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me” (12:9). Thus, God’s grace enables many in every age to conclude with Paul and proclaim, “whenever I am weak, then I am strong” (12:10).