as you might have heard, it's the year of St. Joseph!

IMPORTANT NOTE:

The platform that I’ve been using for the past nine years – Blogger – is doing away with the “follow by email” widget that allows you (if you’re interested!) to receive my Day by Day with Maria Blog as an email. The bottom line is that, come July, you will NOT be receiving my blog as an email whenever I have a new post.  

 

I am pondering what options I have available, but so far nothing stands out. The most likely scenario is that I have to change sites… so, stay tuned, and I will keep you posted! 

 

Repeat after me… Change is good change is good change is good change is good change is good…

 

+     +     +

 

"To other saints the Lord seems to have given grace to succor us in some of our necessities but of this glorious saint my experience is that he succors us in them all and that the Lord wishes to teach us that as He was Himself subject to him on earth (for, being His guardian and being called His father, he could command Him) just so in Heaven He still does all that he asks. This has also been the experience of other persons whom I have advised to commend themselves to him; and even to-day there are many who have great devotion to him through having newly experienced this truth." 

 

~St.Teresa of Avila on her devotion to St. Joseph

 

 

When my son and his wife had their first baby, one of my closest friends enjoyed referring to them as my holy family. “How is your holy family?” “When will you see your holy family again?” When they had twins a couple of years later, she switched to calling them my holy trinity of grandkids. 

 

Rather than detracting from the theological significance of these concepts, using these meaningful faith labels to describe my personal family brought the ideas to life in a unique way for me. 

 

My son’s family certainly was – and remains – a symbol of all “holy families,” ordinary mothers and fathers striving to live holy lives as they put into practice their faith within the quotidian and ordinary work of our lives. 

 

In Patris corde (With a Father’s Heart), an apostolic letter which Pope Francis wrote against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Holy Father emphasized that our shared experience of the pandemic has helped us see more clearly the importance of “ordinary” people who, though far from the limelight, exercise patience, perseverance, faithfulness, and offer daily hope to those around them.

 

In this way, said Pope Francis, they resemble Saint Joseph, “the man who goes unnoticed, a daily, discreet and hidden presence – an intercessor, a support and a guide in times of trouble. Saint Joseph reminds us that those who appear hidden or in the shadows can play an incomparable role in the history of salvation. A word of recognition and of gratitude is due to them all.”

 

I find especially profound the images where St. Joseph is depicted actively taking care of his family: The flight into Egypt; walking to Bethlehem; Teaching Jesus carpentry. There is one illustration, in particular, that I place prominently over my mantle every Christmas season. It depicts Mary in the background, enjoying much-needed rest after giving birth, and Joseph holding newborn Jesus in his arms, lovingly gazing at him.  These are moments in the life of the holy family that I can connect with, instances where a mother and father quietly and faithfully live out their parenting vocation.

 

In his reflection about Joseph of Nazareth and “the mission entrusted to him by God’s providence,” Joseph was for Jesus “the earthly shadow of the heavenly Father,” Pope Francis concluded. “He watched over him and protected him, never leaving him to go his own way.” 

 

To serve in the shadows, while becoming earthly shadows of God for our families, this is the call for each of us, whatever our season of life. 

 

And in this we grow in trust, like Joseph, whose every Gospel story concludes with: he gets up, takes Jesus and his mother, and does what God commanded of him.

 

St. Joseph, please pray for us, that we, too, may get up, 

serve our loved ones, and do the will of the Father.

 

+     +     +

 

This column was first published in the May 2021 issue of Liguorian Magazine, as the regular  column, “Just Live It”