St. Joseph
Spouse of the Virgin Mary, principal protector of the Carmelite Order
March 19
As we read the Gospels, after the young Jesus is found in the Temple, Joseph, the spouse of Mary, is no longer mentioned. It’s as if he were there, and then he wasn’t. In fact, there are no spoken words attributed to Joseph at all. No great words of wisdom, words to live by, nothing.
What Joseph did leave behind was a way of life… One completely given to God. Joseph was a man of silence, always recollected, speaking only when necessary. He loved and trusted his Heavenly Father, obedient to His will, wanting always to please Him. And because of the way he lived St. Joseph did not need to speak, but only to live as God intended, holy, in silence, in virtue, chaste.
St. Joseph was given, by the grace of God, the monumental task of being the spouse of the Mother of God. He was the protector and provider of this Holy Family, raising Jesus as his very own to live a life just as he had done, teaching Jesus all that he knew in work and worship of God.
I certainly don’t claim to be a great thinker or theologian, but a thought keeps coming up over and over regarding Joseph. Now, keep in mind, this is something that’s been planted in my mind and heart. There’s no way to know the answer for sure in this life But, ask yourself, “Why wasn’t Joseph allowed to be present during the Passion and Death of Jesus?”
I suppose he could have been too old and our heavenly Father did not want Joseph to be a burden to Mary and Jesus. Or, to give him rest from all his hard work, and save him from the many ailments that come with old age, He simply took him. Maybe, God just loved Joseph so much that He wanted him for Himself.
But, isn’t it just as likely, that Joseph was taken from their midst at that certain time because, God, aware of Joseph’s keen sense as ‘protector’ of the Holy family, would have tried no matter how feeble he might have been, to stop the cruelty perpetrated on Jesus. God knew that Joseph would suffer more from watching Jesus treated so cruelly than any physical malady. St. Joseph served as God had intended, totally and completely according to His will.
We can learn much from this man of silence, this contemplative who practiced the presence of God every day, forgetting himself to serve God and the precious Family placed in his care. Today, the family is being attacked from many different ways… gay unions, live-in spouses or unwed mothers. This type of life style is promoted all the time on TV and commercial ads. Men, you need to step back and look at the life you have chosen and the precious treasures you have… a wife and beautiful children. Caring for them is not providing the biggest and best snowmobile, boat, car, or video games. It’s the hard work and wages to provide food, shelter and clothing. It’s going with them to school activities, encouraging them to study, teaching them to pray, teaching them the virtues, like St. Joseph taught Jesus. Don’t trade these precious treasures for a night at the casino. Love them and love God and it will be the greatest thing you will ever do in this life and the reward… well, out of this world.
Let us ask St. Joseph for his help in living totally for God. That we too will be the protectors of His body the Church, providers of the deposit of faith to our children, to protect virtue, to listen and be obedient to God’s call to be holy.
The Little Catholic Store
March 02 2009 | The Other Saints | No Comments »
Saint Theophanes, abbot
March 13
Theophanes’ father, who was governor of the Isles of the Archipelago, died when he was only three years old, and left him a heir to a very great estate, under the guardianship of the Iconoclast Emperor, Constantine Copronymus. Amidst the dangers of such an education, a faithful pious servant instilled into his tender mind the most generous sentiments of virtue and religion. Upon reaching manhood, he was compelled by his friends to take a wife; but on the day of his marriage he spoke in so moving a manner to his consort on the shortness and uncertainty of his life, that they made a mutual vow of perpetual chastity. His betrothed afterward became a nun, and he for his part built two monasteries in Mysia; one of which, called the Megal-Agre, near the Propontis, he governed himself.
He lived, as it were, dead to the world and the flesh, in the greatest purity of life, and in the exercises of continual mortification and prayer. In 787, he assisted at the second Council of Nice, where all admired to see one whom they had formally known in so much worldly grandeur, now so meanly clad, so modest, and so full of self-contempt as he appeared to be.
He never laid aside his hairshirt; his bed was a mat, and his pillow a stone; his sustenance was hard coarse bread and water. At 50 years of age he began to be grievously afflicted with a kidney stone and nephritic colic; but bore with cheerfulness the most excruciating pains of his distemper. The Emperor Leo, the Armenian, in 814, renewed persecution against the church, and abolished the use of holy images, which had been restored under Constantine and Irene. Knowing the great reputation and authority of Theophanes, he endeavored to gain him by civilities and crafty letters. The Saint discovered the hook concealed under his alluring baits, which did not, however, hindered him from obeying the Emperor’s summons to Constantinople, though at that time under a violent fit of a stone; with distemper, for the remaining part of his life, allowed him very short intervals of ease.
The Emperor sent him this message: “From your mild and obliging disposition, I flatter myself you are come to confirm my sentiments on the point in question with your sufferings. It is your readiest way for obtaining my favor, and with that the greatest riches and honors for yourself, your monastery, and relations, which it is in the power of an Emperor to bestow. But if you refuse to comply with my desires in this affair, you will incur my highest displeasure, and draw misery and disgrace on yourself and friends.” The holy man replied in this manner: “Being now far advanced in years, and much broken with pains and infirmities, I have neither relish nor inclination for any of these things, which I despised for Christ’s sake in my youth, when I was in condition to enjoy the world. As to my monastery and friends, I recommend them to God. If you think to frighten me into compliance by your threats, as a child is awed by the rod, you only lose your labor. For though unable to walk, and a subject to other corporal infirmities, I trust in Christ, that He will enable me to undergo, in defense of his cause, the sharpest tortures you can inflict on my weak body.”
The Emperor employed several persons to endeavor to overcome his resolution, but in vain; so seeing himself vanquished by his constancy, he confined him two years in a close sinking dungeon, where he suffered much from his distemper and want of necessaries. He was also cruelly scourged, having received 300 stripes. In 1818, he was removed out of his dungeon, and banished into the aisle of Samothracia, where he died seventeen days after his arrival, on 12 March. His relics were honored by many miraculous cures.
He has left us his “Chronographia,” or short history from the year 284, the first of Dioclesian, where George Syncellus left off, to the year 813. His imprisonment did not allow him the leisure to polish the style.
The Little Catholic Store
March 02 2009 | The Other Saints | No Comments »