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March 19, 2021 Feast of St. Joseph in the Year of St. Joseph

Happy Feast of St. Joseph!  I hope you like the image that I am sharing today…it comes to you with a request!

When you walk into Church, you see St. Joseph’s statue among the others.  Since I was a child, up until this day, I have always loved and been fascinated by statues…the colors, sizes, styles, designs and symbols.   However, the real Joseph of Nazareth was no statue.  He was a man of action.  As revealed in Matthew’s Gospel, once he heard the angel’s words in his dreams, he did not hesitate.  He acted. His mantle was work.  His spirituality an active contemplation.  Hearing the message, he acted on it, and focused on it.  His work linked to his mission.  Work…physical labor and protection his wife and son.  This was his charge.

And those who follow in the footsteps of Joseph, in order to follow the way of his son Jesus, do the same.

The image of St. Joseph that comes with this message was shared with me by the Sisters of St. Joseph. It came to me in their St. Joseph Day greeting!  Beautiful isn’t it!   Paraphrasing Pope Francis, they proclaim: “Joseph earthly shadow of the heavenly Father, draw us to Jesus your son.”

Like Joseph, the Sisters of St. Joseph have taken up his name to walk closely in the path of Jesus.  Like Joseph they have been active contemplatives…helping the good neighbor…with schools, hospitals, clinic, shelters and food banks…advocacy, being a voice, marching, standing, sharing, laughing. You may know them in your life.  I do.  Sr. Ann Louis.  Sr. Mary Rita.  Sr. Michelle, Sr. Mary Sarah.  Sr. Rose Irma.  Sr. Theresa, Sr. James Francis, Sr. Mary Alice …and the litany of those past and present go on.

Here is the REQUEST…join the work.

On this Solemnity of St. Joseph, I am asking you to do TWO things.  NOT one but TWO things.

First.  Please pray for the Sisters, and the Ministry and Mission of the Sisters of St. Joseph.

Second.  Please give.  I mean make a sacrificial gift to the Ministry and Mission Foundation.  Your gift will join the mission of the Sisters of St. Joseph, as we follow the way of Jesus Christ. 

Remember, you’re not a statue…you’re made for action!  Pray and Give…TODAY.

Click the link below

https://secure.donationpay.org/ssjerie/

For full transparency, I am on the board of the Sisters of St. Joseph Minister and Mission Foundation.  Having been educated and formed by these great women this is a humbling opportunity for me to say thank you! 

St. Joseph, pray for us

Third Sunday of Lent in the year of St Joseph

About his character, Joseph is said to be “righteous,” and by his actions, spiritually attentive. What great qualities for a spouse, father or friend!

As the year of St Joseph continues to unfold for us perhaps we should reflect on this question : who has been JOSEPH for you? I’m sure there have been more than one. These are the people who always seem to be there when needed, or say the right thing, or offer encouragement just at the right moment. One who comes to mind right now for me was even named Joseph.

Back in the day when I served in pastoral ministry there was a man of few words, great works and a spiritual life that by itself was edifying. I don’t think I ever heard a cross word pass his lips. He had a great spirit a hearty laugh and deep love of the lord. Joe was definitely someone you were grateful was in your corner. If I close my eyes I can see him praying in his pew at St Anthony in Walston. Joe Juliette was one of my Joseph’s.

You too are to be a righteous and attentive follow of Jesus how can comfort the sorrowing, Give faith to the doubting, hope, peace, truth, encouragement to those right in front of you.

Thanks Joe!

St Joseph pray for us!

Friday of the Second Week of Lent in the Year of St. Joseph

With an eye toward the Scriptures that will unfold for us on Sunday I find myself again looking at Jesus through the eyes or influence of his foster father, Joseph.  Here is a handy link to the readings:

( https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030721-YearB.cfm)  Where did Jesus learn the 10 commandments?  Where did he learn to be zealous about God’s Temple?  Where did he learn that it was the Lord’s way that was perfect?  It had to be in the house of Nazareth…where else.

Where did you learn right from wrong?  That God loved you? That his name is holy and his way is the only way that truly satisfies?  At home?  From your mom or dad?  

Several years ago there was a country song that echoed both the good and bad we teach children.  Rodney Atkins song “Watching You” portrayed the exchange of habits between a father and young song. At first, the words coming out of the boy’s mouth betrayed the father as their origin.  But later in the song, that same father has a graced moment, when he observes his little boy praying:

“ He crawled out of bed and

he got down on his knees.

He closed his little eyes,

folded his little hands
And spoke to God like

he was talking to a friend
And I said, “Son, now where’d you

learn to pray like that?”

He said, “I’ve been watching you, dad.

Ain’t that cool?
I’m your buckaroo, I wanna be like you”

I am convinced, deep within us is the desire to be an influence on others…to truly be a good and positive influence on others. That is what holiness is all about.  St. Joseph is a model of Holiness.  His life was not as a marble or plaster statue holding a lily.  His was one of day to day testimony to the truth of the Godhead in the midst of a needy world.  He needed a savior.  His sinless bride

needed a gateway to heaven.  His people needed redemption.  The commandments, prophets all lead to fixation with God’s movement in their life.  This was salvation history.  Most likely, he had no idea, that the child he held, protected and adopted was that salvation history in the flesh.

We are called to influence others with GOOD NEWS…Jesus has come…Christ has died, risen and will come again…to take us to his father’s house.  Good News huh?

St. Joseph Pray for us!

Second Sunday of Lent 2021 in the Year of St. Joseph

Sorry I missed posting on Friday.  I was finishing up a talk I was giving on St. Joseph at a parish day of renewal.  My premise for the presentation was that Joseph and Mary developed a faith and trust in a God who could do the POSSIBLE even in the midst of situations and circumstances that seem impossible.  Hold on to that.  Cling to it like an anchor when the boat of life is rocking.  Storms pass.  Earthquakes come and have aftershocks, but the ground settles.  Fires become smoldering ash…and from the ash a sapling will rise.  Do you remember when Mt. St. Helen’s erupted and blew half a mountainside into the sky?  Hillsides cascaded down the mountain snapping trees like matchsticks.  Roadways were washed away or impassible from boulders larger than semi-trucks.  But, the Spring came, and the desolate hillside and vale began to see life emerge.

Here is a truth that will level the spiritual playing field.  Joseph and Mary were made of flesh and blood, bones and veins…just like you and me.  Just as they were called by God in a very particular time and place to obediently follow the call of God to their mysterious mission, so are we.  Did they know everything that would unfold in the time they had with Jesus?  Did Joseph know that his son would be sacrificed…unlike Isaac, Jesus would not be spared.  Did Mary know every step that would lead to Calvary?  I don’t think so.  But what they did know was a call. A call to obedience…holy listening to the prompting of God in their lives.

So too you and me.  No matter what is going on right now…in your life, in the life of someone you love or know, remember it is temporary…hold on to the anchor…Christ Jesus.  Give him yourself in the quiet this Lent to hear his voice and respond to his call.

St. Joseph, pray for us.

First Friday of Lent 2021 in the Year of St. Joseph

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” (Col 1:15).  Each Friday, Fridays of Lent in particular, we are called to join ourselves to the Passion of Jesus…to deep prayer, to self-sacrifice and repentance.  It is with this triple-play that grace leads us home, in a new direction…a new path toward life and away from death.  The irony of the passion and the cross is that, what seems like loss and death, sorrow and pain, is truly the opposite.  The passion is the path, the cross is the vehicle, the loss of self is the gain of Christ, and death is not death, it is life itself.  Homeruns are awe inspiring, but a triple play, that is breathtaking to behold, is it not.

Jesus, true God and true man was in the garden of Gethsemane.  He was cut off from all he had felt and known of his heavenly father.  It is called the Agony in the Garden, right?  Agony is that gulf of abandonment between the beloved and the lover…between the son and the father.  Jesus wanted to do His father’s will, but if it could pass, he would be ok with that…but despite abandonment, despite feeling otherwise, Jesus says,” not my will, but your will be done.”  Just like his Mother Mary, Just like his father Joseph. 

Now ponder this.  If Jesus is the image of the invisible God, who is the image of the Invisible God the Father for Jesus?  Exactly:  JOSEPH!  Who raised this Messiah?  Who taught him to pray?  Who told him of God and his heritage and lineage from David the King?  Who stood by him in synagogue? Who may have told him about a number of messages he had from angels in his dreams?  Who may have told him about why people talk about Joseph and Mary sometimes?  Who may have told him about the Angel who spoke to his mother…or the visitor who came from afar…or the astonished shepherds come to take a look at the new born savior.  Well, I am sure that the one to whom God the Father entrusted His only begotten Son, was with him in the garden and in his heart as he agonized to bring his mysterious and oft’ confusing mission to fulfillment.  Joseph was with Jesus in the Garden, was with him at the pillar, was with him on the way on the cross and in the tomb. 

Now ponder this.  If we are “born-again” in Christ…if we are baptized in him, and have a new identity, i.e. We are Christ, or as St. Paul says, “I no longer live, it is Christ who lives in me.” (Gal 2:20)…then when someone is lost, we are to be the way for them  We are Christ for them.   When one is confused, we are to be the light in their darkness. We are Christ for them.  And so on…

May Lent lead us to the grace that changes us from mere namesakes, to images of Christ to one another.

St. Joseph pray for us.

Ash Wednesday 2021

Many, many years ago…I remember it as if it was yesterday…I was talking a snowy walk with my best friend and his two little boys.  As we walked, he kept looking back at his son. Every once in a while he would say, “Hey Guys, stay on the path.”  The snow and slush, the mud and ice were all around…getting off that path was fraught with peril.

Not unlike my friend, our Heavenly Father’s glance is always upon us…trying to keep us on His path.  There are many paths…but only His leads to eternal life.  Once again, Lent offers us the opportunity to hear the Father’s voice, to gaze into his loving eyes, to know the direction of our eternal call, and to embrace eternity. 

“Hey guys, stay on the path”

Friday February 12 2021 Year of St. Joseph

 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  (Mt 22:36-40).  I wonder what went through Jesus’ mind when he gave that response?  Did it make him think of Joseph who, as his earthly father, taught him that and so much more?

I’ve been thinking about the father – son relationship between Joseph and Jesus. As Joseph was known to be Jesus’ father just as Mary is known to be his mother, there was obviously a known public connection and intimate family connection. No kidding. From both accounts of his birth Joseph and Mary have central place. Their “yes” to God’s incredible plan, begins, as it were, the salvific ball rolling in our human world. Joseph and Mary do not have passive roles in the life of Jesus.  This Holy Babe comes to them in need of instruction. Who taught him? Of course, Mary and Joseph. But who taught this “God in a tiny growing body” how to pray? I would posit, because of Jewish worship and custom, most rested with Joseph, the righteous and just.

In the passage above, Jesus just connected the whole of the law and prophets together in the love of God and neighbor.  I am sure Joseph schooled Jesus in this connection.  I am also convinced that the bedrock of Jewish morning/evening prayer experience, the Shema Israel fell from the lips of Joseph to the ears of Jesus.  Joseph must have taught this essential Jewish prayer to his divine little boy.  “Jesus, this is our creed.  This is who we are and in whom we believe. Speak these words. Memorize them. ‘HEAR O ISRAEL THE LORD IS GOD, THE LORD IS ONE.’” (DT 6:4) but  it continues with, “therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with your whole heart, and with your whole being, and with your whole strength” (V.5).  Answering the question in Matthew 22, Jesus must have smiled inside…a smile of thanksgiving for his first teach, Joseph.

What does this mean to you and me?  Our faith is important. What we have we must give and share.  Our faith, as a gift from God himself, returns to God himself though our giving it away.  Yes, only Joseph and Mary had the particular privilege to give that gift to Jesus…but we are just like Joseph and Mary, in that, we can give and share that same gift with another.  This we must do.

St. Joseph.  Pray for us.

 Friday February 5, 2021 Year of St. Joseph

Growing up, I always knew that I shared a name with my grandfather.  He died a few years before my birth, but growing up, I heard stories of him.  Sometimes it was like he was giant of a man. He was revered, loved, missed.  I grew to love the fact that I shared his name.  It became part of my own story.

The Gospel of Matthew begins, not with the story of Jesus’ birth, but of his genealogy.  From the very first verse Jesus is connected to David the King and to Abraham:  all tied into the very heart of the covenant of God with his people.  It ends with the prominent place of Joseph in that bond of connections. “Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary. Of her was born Jesus who is called the Messiah.” (Mt. 1: 16).  Joseph as husband gives birthright connection of Jesus to his heritage.

Big deal?  Yep. Huge deal.  It shows God writing again with crooked lines to help us see His plan and our place in it. 

Joseph, the carpenter knew his family tree.  Joseph knew that, while he might be a middle-class laborer, he was descended from the greatest king there ever was.  David, the giant slayer, David who slew tens of thousands (making King Saul jealous), David the shepherd, David the Psalmist, even David the murderous adulterer – whose heart was so much in love with God that forgiveness touched his sorrow.  David, lover of God. 

I want us to imagine the mind and soul of Joseph the Carpenter.  He knew who he was and who he was descended from.  Cutting and building, shaping and sanding, his mind must have drifted to that reality.  Some of the greatest and most passionate psalms he prayed in synagogue were attributed to his ancestor.  Sometimes, as sweat poured down his brow, he might have wondered why his family was not in a palace like David’s.  This was his identity.

Do we even comprehend ours?  Our identity is in the little babe that Joseph protected!  Joseph must have wondered what his little boy would become, Would he be a King, like his ancestor David?  Would he take up arms again the oppressive Romans?  How would this all happen?  Would he live to see it take place? 

As we ponder St. Joseph, we need to ponder our spiritual identity in Jesus Christ.  We are sons and daughters of God through our brother, messiah and savior, the redeemer King.  Ponder that.  Grasp that.  We have been given a new birth by water and the spirit.  Ponder that.  Grasp that.  What Joseph could barely comprehend, he yet served.  It has been fully revealed to us, and we doubt. We are call to something so much more than what we can see, taste, touch, hear, smell and comprehend. Joseph knew Jesus in the Flesh…we know Jesus in Flesh and Blood, Soul and Divinity…and know are call to union with Him.  But, knowing and doing sometimes can be worlds apart. Let our words be those of St. Paul to the Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”  (Gal 2:20)  We bear His Name…let us bear it in truth and love…Like Joseph.

St. Joseph, pray for us!

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.