Month: January 2021

Friday January 29, 2021 Year of St. Joseph

Good Pope John, now St. Pope John XXIII was known for being down to earth with his good humor and his quick wit.  Once, after visiting a Roman prison, a reporter asked the pontiff about his experience.  The pope replied, “it was wonderful.  It was, perhaps, the first time I have been to a prison and did not have to visit a relative!”  On another occasion, in an interview, Pope John was asked, “Your Holiness, how many people work at the Vatican?”  He paused for a moment, smiled and sheepishly said, “about half.”

His disposition made him the ‘people’s pope’ so affable and close to those he was called to shepherd.  But that was his ultimate call, to be shepherd, to be servant.  He knew he was called to be shepherd of the flock of the Lord. 

Reflecting on his own life, Pope John XXIII stated that his deepest hope was to be a servant.  His desire was that whoever saw him would say, “If this be the servant, how great must be the master.”  This is the call of all of us who take the name Christian…to reflect the master in our servanthood.

Truly, in the order of Salvation, Joseph and Mary were the first Servants of the Word of God.  Both altered the course of their lives to embrace serve the word made flesh, Jesus, the incarnate Word of the Father.  This vocation, this call to service began for Joseph and Mary, not at Bethlehem, but at Jesus’ conception; when the Word Made Flesh was knit in Mary’s womb.  Mary and Joseph assented to their vocation at Gabriel’s greeting and the nerve calming nocturnal dream message of an angel. Both accepted the call to serve the pre-born Savior. This was the incarnational moment.  And this was the seminal moment of all Christian’s vocation to serve the Word of God.  For followers of that same Savior then, CONCEPTION has CONSEQUENCES.

In stark contrast with the slaughter of the innocence under Herod, for those who follow Jesus, human life is sacred…for conception to natural death. No exceptions. No law can make wrong right. No situation, however painful or agonizing, can diminish the ultimate good and dignity of the human person.  The vocation of the Christian, as modelled by Joseph and Mary, is to serve life from conception to natural death…and all the parts and spaces in between. Because, for the Christian, if Conception has consequences, so does hunger, thirst, shelter, dignity, equity, justice, mercy, kindness, compassion, love …Human life in all its forms, stages and needs is an opportunity to serve and witness to the word made flesh.

The truth is Jesus was no less EMANNUEL in the WOMB as He was Messiah in the TOMB.  And the Risen Lord of Glory calls us to that truth.

Joseph and Mary teach us that, ALL LIFE MATTERS, and must be served and defended, in the name Jesus who took on flesh and came to redeem us all.

St. Joseph.  Pray for Us.

 READ and PRAY Psalm 139   (Here is an excerpt)

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” 

Friday January 22, 2021 Year of St. Joseph

“When Herod had died, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead.” He rose, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go back there. And because he had been warned in a dream, he departed for the region of Galilee. He went and dwelt in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He shall be called a Nazorean.” (Mt 2:19-23)

I wonder how long they were they in Egypt?  What was that like?  I wonder what it was like when Joseph got back to Nazareth with Mary and Jesus?  How old was Jesus?  Was he still a baby or toddler or nearing the age when they would traveled to the temple in Jerusalem?  If Jesus was still young, did the people wonder how their child was spared the slaughter of the late infamous King Herod?

What must have been the thoughts of Joseph, having heard of the slaying of innocent male children of a certain age at the time of their flight to Egypt?  He was human after all. 

(Let’s try to get inside the mind and heart of Joseph)

“So much death.  So innocent…how could anyone kill children…kill babies..and now here we are with our healthy little boy…what must they think of us? Do they even connect the dots?  

Had I not listened to the angel, it could have been him.   He could have been laid low by the sword.  But even before that…If I hadn’t listen to the first angel in my dream, I may have quietly dismissed this little one from my life entirely.  That may have laid him low.  It could have been him and it could have been her.  Cutting Mary off with a quite divorce, what might that have done to her… her future, her hope, her child growing in the womb?  My plan may have cut them both in two.”

It could have been him…it could have been her…it could have been me!  But, somehow I listened to the voice of the angel.  I heard that deeper voice in my dream.”

The grace of God allowed Joseph to listen to the deeper voice…let us ask the same God and Father of us all, who spoke to Joseph, to open our ears, and open our hearts to listen to that deeper voice.  AMEN

St. Joseph.  Pray for Us.

Friday January 15, 2021 Year of St. Joseph

Take a good look at this picture of a stained glass window in Youngstown..St. Pat’s on Oak Hill to be exact.  Take a good long look at it.  (PAUSE: I mean it!)

Mary is on the left; Joseph on the right, and Jesus in the middle.  Mary pondering.  Joseph wondering.  Jesus focusing.  (Interesting that Jesus is being held, not by either of his early parents, but by the angel.) As Mary pondered all things in her heart, and Jesus focused on the work of the Heavenly Father (even in this window, embracing the tiny cross with his arms), Joseph seems to be wondering.  “What is the mission?  What is my mission?  What am I supposed to do?  How can I do what I have to do unless I know what it’s all about?”   “Come on…give me the details, would ya!?”  Joseph is just like us! 

Last night, DeAnna and I watched another episode of our latest NetFlix series.  As it came to a conclusion for the night, one of the characters is exasperated and blurts out:  “Why didn’t I know the whole story?  Why didn’t I know the whole plan?”  The response of her partner is classic. “You didn’t need to know everything.  All you needed to do was your part.  And you did it.”

We are just like Joseph and Joseph is just like us. I am sure going to Egypt was not cake walk.  The trip to Bethlehem must have seemed like one compared to that rugged journey.  Then, years later, to be told in a dream no less, to go home.  I am sure, even doing his duty, Joseph must have wondered, “what’s the plan?”

After the return from Egypt, there is no mention of Joseph in the Gospels, other than his connection to Jesus, as father. (Mt 13:55, Mk 6:3, Lk 4:22 and Jn 6:42).  So critical and pivitol was Joseph to the incarnation and the economy of Salvation, you would think that there would be more.  But no.  That’s it.  And not even a word.  Joseph has no lines in the Cosmic Salvific Play.

But I return to the line from Netflix: “You didn’t need to know everything.  All you needed to do was your part.  And you did it.”  All Joseph needed to do what his part.  And his part was essential.

We have heard that word used a lot this year.  Essential Jobs…essential workplaces…essential businesses…and essential workers. WELL..we are just like Joseph.  We don’t know the whole plan.  We don’t know all the details.  But we do know this.  Jesus Christ has come in the Flesh and He preached the Kingdom of God, suffered for all of our sins and rose triumphant from the grave…ascended to HIS Heavenly Father and sending the Holy Spirit, He calls us to do our part. To proclaim that He is the way and the truth and the life.

Like Joseph, we have an essential part in the Plan of Salvation.  Just do it.

St. Joseph, Pray for us

Friday January 8, 2021

Gabriel’s annunciation to Mary of her unexpected and exceedingly incredible divine pregnancy seems to the casual reader to be an exciting start to God’s redeeming action.  Mary’s “fiat”  “be it done to me as you say” was not in any way passive.  No.  She was taking on the full weight of the Heavenly conception. 

But So was Joseph.  Joseph’s first annunciation came from his angel, his betrothed, Mary.  She most likely was the one to tell him that she was with child…and then the incredible story of the angel’s words and the Divine sonship.  The weight of this message first laid heavy on his heart.  We know what he decided to do. “Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man,^* yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly.” (Mt 1:19)

But Joseph had his own annunciation.  The angel came to him in a dream and not only revealed the truth of the child in his beloved’s womb, but the name Joseph was to give him.

What is our lesson from St. Joseph today?  Not all problems need simple quick solutions. Because some problems are possibilities in disguise.

1. No matter how good or righteous we think we are, or best intentioned with our choice, we need to make room for God and His word in our life and choices.
2. St. Joseph’s dream teaches us that God always has something more in store for us, if we simply do our part and trust in His Love.  Joseph needed to both trust Mary and trust God.

St. Joseph, pray for us.

January 1, 2021 in the Year of St. Joseph

Listen up!  Our year starts with a blessing.   The First Reading from Mass today (Numbers 6:22-27) proclaims (pronounces) the great blessing given from God himself to Moses and in turn to Aaron and his sons:

The LORD bless you and keep you!
The LORD let his face shine upon
you, and be gracious to you!
The LORD look upon you kindly and
give you peace!
So shall they invoke my name upon the Israelites, 
and I will bless them.

Joseph was no stranger to this passage and the depth of its meaning and purpose.  God’s Holy People are blessed through God’s Holy Sacrifice.  This prayer was prayed daily at the temple at the end of sacrifices made to worship God the Most High.

Today the Church celebrates the wife of Joseph, Mary as the Mother of God.  Always in the background, Joseph too is celebrated as the Father of God…the Word made flesh.  Image how Joseph taught Jesus that blessing.  Imagine how Joseph introduced the Word of God to the word proclaimed in the synagogue.  Imagine how Joseph witnessed to his son what it meant to be faithful and dedicated to God and his mother.  Sacred Scripture tells us that Jesus “grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon him.” (Lk 2:40,52)

Think about this…who did Jesus first call father? Papa, Dada?  It was Joseph! And Joseph had to have influenced Jesus’ reality of fatherhood.  And it is through that same Jesus, who called Joseph dad, that we are redeemed! Jesus learned “sonship” from Joseph, and we gain “sonship” through Jesus.  The Second Reading for today liturgy reminds us of that reality.  (Gal 4: 4-7)

Brothers and sisters:
When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son,
born of a woman, born under the law, 
to ransom those under the law, 
so that we might receive adoption as sons.
As proof that you are sons, 
God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, 
crying out, “Abba, Father!”
So you are no longer a slave but a son, 
and if a son then also an heir, through God.

Sooooo….listen up!  Here are at least two points of reflection for us.

Like Joseph, we have something to share.  Joseph shared both his lineage and his life with the Savior of the World!  Joseph shared the blessing of himself.  So too, we have blessings to share…by our work, our words, our actions, our witness…our lives of faith. Let’s do it.

What do we share in common with Joseph?  We are sons and daughters of a loving Father.  God revealed himself as “Abba.”  This is the image of care, mercy, sensitivity and tenderness.  We have all seen it.  A new mom or dad helping a child walk…at the first misstep, what do we see. The immediate reach of hands to catch, grab, hold.  This is God our Father.  As we begin this year, which will have its share of missteps among the blessings, reflect on that image.  Our God has a reach to catch, grab and hold us. 

St. Joseph, pray for us!