Reflections on SAINT JOSEPH by Saint Josemaría Escrivá De Balaguer (1902-75). Extracts from his writings and sermons. - 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 together with her has been closest to God. He deserves your affection, and it will do you good to get to know him, because he has great power before the Lord and before the Mother of God. - Saint Joseph, father of Christ, is also your Father and your Lord, and a teacher of interior life. Ask him always to help you. Place yourself under the patronage of Saint Joseph, and you will feel the effectiveness of his power. - 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. Isnt that reason enough for us to consider this just man 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”. With Saint Joseph, the Christian learns what it means to belong to God and fully to assume ones 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. - Who could be a better teacher for us than Saint Joseph? If you want my advice, which I have never tired of repeating these many years, — Ite ad Ioseph: Go to Joseph”. He will show us definite ways, both human and divine, to approach Jesus. And soon you will dare, as he did, to take up in his arms, kiss, clothe and look after this child God who has been born unto us. - Saint Joseph 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. Saint 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. As you get to know him, you discover that the Holy Patriarch is also a master of the interior life, for he teaches us to know Jesus and share our life with Him, and to realize that we are part of Gods family. Saint Joseph can teach us these lessons, because he is an ordinary man, a family man, a worker who earned his living by manual labour, all of which has great significance and is a source of happiness for us. The name Joseph, in Hebrew, means God will add. God adds unsuspected dimensions to the holy lives of those who do His will. He adds the one important dimension which gives meaning to everything, the divine dimension. To the humble and holy life of Joseph He added the lives of the Virgin Mary and of Jesus, our Lord. Saint Joseph was an ordinary sort of man on whom God relied to do great things. He did exactly what the Lord wanted him to do, in each and every event that went to make up his life. That is why Saint Matthew, in his Gospel, praises Joseph as a just man. And in Hebrew a just man means a good and faithful servant of God, someone who fulfils the Divine will, and who is honourable and charitable toward his neighbour. So a just man is someone who loves God and proves his love by keeping Gods commandments and directing his whole life toward the service of his brothers, his fellow men. Faith, hope, love: these are the support of Joseph’s life. - If Joseph learned from Jesus to live in a divine way, I would be bold enough to say that, humanly speaking, there was much he taught Gods Son. There is something I do not quite like in that title of foster father which is sometimes given to Joseph, because it might make us think of the relationship between Joseph and Jesus as something cold and external. Certainly, our faith tells us that he was not His father according to the flesh, but this is not the only kind of fatherhood. 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 professional skill to Him. Jesus must have definitely resembled Joseph: in his way of working, in the features of his character, 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 to give doctrine; all this certainly reflects the influence of Joseph. - Saint Teresa of Avila says: Whoever fails to find a Master to teach him how to pray, should choose this glorious Saint, and he will not go astray. This advice comes from an experienced soul. Follow it!
Posted on: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 20:29:19 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015