44 Days of St. Joseph – Cornerstone of Families
The family is the cell of society. This is to say that the family is the initial and fundamental basis of our social nature. Our social nature, in turn, is a carrier of our divine destiny: unity and communion with God. Therefore, the family can be rightly called, as John Paul II called it, the […]
44 Days of St. Joseph – Guardian of Virgins
Virginity is not a “lack of” as much as it is an “availability for.” Those who forego marriage for the Kingdom do so not to “flee marriage,” but precisely “for the Kingdom.” Those on this earth who would give themselves to God in such a way—the Blessed Virgin Mary, for example—such people pose a direct […]
44 Days of St. Joseph – April 5 – Joseph Most Loyal
Belief is a type of knowing, born of trust, the trust given to a witness of what is personally unknown or unseen. Faith is a type of belief, a supernatural belief in the Witness who gives testimony of Himself, and Who, in revealing Himself, renders to the believer the ability to believe. So, to be […]
44 Days of St. Joseph – April 4 – Joseph Most Obedient
When Joseph heard the word of God, he acted. Scripture records no hemming, no hawing. God said go. Joseph went. What is it that allows a person to obey? The answer is love. We moderns tend to equate obedience with compliance, and so we often bristle at the concept of obedience, feeling it is perhaps […]
44 Days of St. Joseph – April 2 – Joseph Most Prudent
Prudence is the ability to see what the good is in a concrete situation, and then to act accordingly. There is, then, an interesting overlap between the life of virtue and the life of skilled, manual work. There is, after all, a sense in which being a skilled tradesman is synonymous with having “creative prudence”—knowing […]
44 Days of St. Joseph – March 31 – Joseph, Most Just
The Gospel tells us that Joseph resolved to divorce Mary quietly on learning she was pregnant. How then was this, as the Gospel also tells us, the result of Joseph being “a just man”? Different interpretations of the affair may answer the question differently. Some believe Joseph thought Mary was unfaithful, and yet he did […]
44 Days of St. Joseph – March 30 – Head of the Holy Family
All analogies prove themselves insufficient, but it could be said that the Incarnation of Christ created something of an existential slipstream, a divine force whereby humanity was taken up into the divine. Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection doesn’t obliterate what is human, but sets it back on path, orients it truly to its divine end. […]
44 Days of St. Joseph – March 29 – Minister of Salvation
St. Joseph, as the servant of Christ, is also a servant of Christ’s mission. His service is therefore a participation in Christ’s work, even while that service is, for most of his life, seemingly unremarkable. But this is, once again, a sign of Christ’s humility, generosity, and love. The “unremarkable life” is take up by […]
44 Days of St. Joseph – March 28 – Servant of Christ
The paradox is worth taking some time thinking about. God Incarnate humbles himself and lives a human life. He apprentices himself to a tradesman from Nazareth, and forges the path of mankind’s salvation. And, at the same time, the man he apprentices himself to, in playing this role faithfully, serves the purposes of God in […]
44 Days of St. Joseph – March 27 – Zealous Defender of Christ
The German philosopher Josef Pieper defined silence as “openness of soul.” It is the soul’s readiness to respond, its ability to respond. Quite literally, it is the soul’s responsibility. This is contrary to how we tend to think of silence, which (we think) is marked by the absence of something—usually sound or noise. We don’t […]