19 March 2016
Solemnity of Saint Joseph, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Except for Mary, has there ever been anyone who has demonstrated a deeper faith and trust than Joseph? Even Abraham’s trial fades in comparison with the ordeals God gave Joseph to face. He must have known of Mary’s purity and then he found she was pregnant. How do women become pregnant! Then, “being a man of honor and wanting to spare her publicity,” he quietly put her aside. What agony! Later an angel assured him in his sleep (How was he able to any sleep at all!) that the child to be born was conceived by the Holy Spirit and that he, Joseph, was to name him Jesus, the name at which every knee would bend. Then there was the trial at Jesus’ birth. Next, becoming a refugee in a foreign land, he had to learn a new language, find a job to feed his family. Finally settled, he had to move again, not to his native land, but to Galilee. Again, where was he to live; where was he to find a job? And Jesus could be a problem too. What agony he caused his mother and himself by being lost in Jerusalem! Yet Joseph consistently trusted in the mercy and goodness of God. Today I shall go to Joseph asking him to show me how I can trust more.