For Joseph

Wednesdays are traditionally dedicated to St Joseph, a day of special prayer to the Foster-Father of the Lord. At our prayer group on Monday evening last, one of our members Ellen, drew my attention to a song about St Joseph, recorded by Tricia Yearwood. It has been around for some time, so forgive me if you know it already, but for those you who don't it's a lovely song which honours the man who raised the Infant Christ as his own. Thanks, Ellen!

A Prayer To St Joseph

Holy father, St Joseph,
watch over the Church in these days.
As you cared for the Christ Child,
so now surround us with your protecting hand.
Teach us the humble virtues
which will make us truly men and women of the Beatitudes.
Be our advocate with our Lord Jesus
whom you called son on earth.
Keep us in your heart, dear beloved father,
so we, like you, may become devoted disciples of Christ.

St Joseph the Worker

Happy feast day to you all. Let us commend to St Joseph the Worker all those who labour, that they may recognise that the Lord is with them and blesses them in their work.

St John Paul learned of the dignity of work in his time working in the quarry. To celebrate this day of work, the new Saint's poem on work:

Material

1

Listen: the even knocking of hammers,

so much their own,

I project on to the people

to test the strength of each blow.

Listen now: electric current

cuts through a river of rock.

And a thought grows in me day after day:

the greatness of work is inside man.

Hard and cracked 

his hand is differently charged

by the hammer

and thought differently unravels in stone

as human energy splits from the strength of stone

cutting the bloodstream, an artery

in the right place.

Look, how love feeds 

on this well-grounded anger

which flows in to people's breath

as a river bent by the wind, 

and which is never spoken, but just breaks high vocal cords.

Passers-by scuttle off into doorways, 

someone whispers: "Yet here is a great force."

Fear not. Man's daily deeds have a wide span,

a strait riverbed can't imprison them long.

Fear not. For centuries they all stand in Him, 

and you look at Him now

through the even knocking of hammers.

2

Bound are the blocks of stone, the low-voltage wire

cuts deep in their flesh, an invisible whip--

stones know this violence.

When an elusive blast rips their ripe compactness

and tears them from their eternal simplicity,

the stones know this violence.

Yet can the current unbind their full strength?

It is he who carries that strength in his hands:

the worker.

3

Hands are the heart's landscape. They split sometimes

like ravines into which an undefined force rolls.

The very same hands which man only opens 

when his palms have had their fill of toil.

Now he sees: because of him alone others can walk in peace.

Hands are a landscape. When they split, the pain of their sores

surges free as a stream. 

But no thought of pain--

no grandeur in pain alone.

For his own grandeur he does not know how to name.

4

No, not just hands drooping with the hammer's weight, 

not the taut torso, muscles shaping their own style, 

but thought informing his work,

deep, knotted in wrinkles on his brow,

and over his head, joined in a sharp arc, shoulders and veins vaulted.

So for a moment he is a Gothic building

cut by a vertical thought born in the eyes.

No, not a profile alone, 

not a mere figure between God and the stone,

sentenced to grandeur and error.

Papa Giuseppe!

The Solemnity of our Holy Father, St Joseph, patron of the Universal Church, protector of the disciples of the Lord.  A happy feast day to you all.

I found this beautiful painting of St Joseph which I find to be a most wonderful image of him.  First of all it shows him as a young man.  There is no evidence to suggest he was an old man, he may well have been just a few years older than Our Lady.  It is an image which shows him as a strong man; as one who watches with a keen eye, a man who is trustworthy.  It is also an image which offers his heart for veneration - the loving, fatherly heart of St Joseph: a heart which was dedicated to Christ in love and service, and is now dedicated to us as he prays for us and helps us.  

May St Joseph watch over us all, protect us and lead us to Christ our Saviour.

Change To Roman Missal

 

There has been another change to the Roman Missal, one begun by Blessed John XXIII and completed under Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis: as you may have heard, St Joseph is to be included in the invocation of the Saints in Eucharistic Prayers II, III and IV.  As you know Blessed John added his name to the Roman Canon. 

 

In response to numerous petitions received from the faithful, and with the support of Benedict XVI during his pontificate, and now announced and decreed by Pope Francis, the Foster Father of the Lord will now be named after Our Lady in all the Eucharistic Prayers.

 

Here is the text of the decree.

 

This is welcome.  Joseph as the Foster of the Lord and Patron of the Universal Church deserves such a recognition - to be invoked in the liturgy during every Mass.  We need his protection and prayers in these times. 

St Joseph The Worker

 

Well, they may be marching up and down Red Square today, but all over the Catholic world we are celebrating the feast of St Joseph the Worker.    Yes, it is probably true that today's feast was meant to distract from socialism's May day, but in reality, it brings us to reflect on work as part of the Christian life. 

 

If we want to truly understand what work is for us as human beings we need not look at Marx, Lenin or Mao, but rather to the humble carpenter who did not need a bloody revolution to draw attention to his ideas, we see them clearly in his witness to service to his family and his God.  In his work St Joseph found his dignity as a human being and as a child of God, he was not mere proletariat, but rather a living soul who helps transform the world through his labour and his vision, a vision which is given by God and one which calls for the creative cooperation of man.  In reality in Marxism man becomes a cog in a system, in Christianity's view of work, as seen in St Joseph's example, man becomes an artist and a saint.  That, I believe, is the difference between Marxist socialism and Christianity.

 

To all our workers, I wish you a happy feast day.  May your patron, St Joseph watch over you.

Novena To St Joseph

 

As requested by Cardinal Dolan, today many of us begin a novena to St Joseph for the Cardinals, the Conclave and in preparation for the new Pope - indeed interceding for the one who will be elected.  Let us all, in that communion which unites us in the Church, join in prayer to the Patron of the Universal Church in these days.

 

Here are some lovely prayers which can be used in the Novena.

A Modest Proposal

 

Cardinal Dolan has made an interesting suggestion on his blog.  As a means of praying for our Cardinals and the Conclave and of preparing for the new Pope, he has requested that we join him in a novena to St Joseph, beginning on March 11th and leading up to his feast day on the 19th.  It is an excellent idea: count me in, Your Eminence.

 

St Joseph is of course the Patron of the Universal Church, so it is apt that we should turn to him as we pray for a new Pope. Indeed as the head of the Lord's household, can there be a better intercessor for the election of the one who will watch over God's family on earth? 

 

I think this is most interesting.  I had lunch with a friend of mine and we were discussing potential candidates for the papacy and a certain US Cardinal was suggested and the name it was thought he might take was Joseph I.  And now a certain US Cardinal......    Interesting indeed.  And it seems Sandro Magister is thinking the same thoughts.

Bits And Pieces

Happy feast day to you all: today is of course the optional memoria of St Joseph the Worker (I think that needs an upgrade - it should be a memoria at least).  Every blessing to all our workers who, like St Joseph, faithfully serve their families, their society and God through their toil.  Through the intercession of St Joseph may they be sanctified through their work and encourage others to see the true dignity of man and woman revealed through honest labour.

I see the case of the Chinese dissident is causing problems for both the US and China: he is the elephant in the parlour as the two countries work out their trade deals.  Human rights tend to get in the way of economics, so best to ignore them - at least that is the message that seems to becoming out of Ireland, the US and other countries who covet China's business.  Another reason why Chen Guangcheng might not be top of Barak Obama's Christmas card list is because the dissident is opposing China's forced abortion and sterilisation policies.  Seeing as Obama, Sebelius and their cohorts are trying to force Catholics to pay for contraception and abortaficients the parallels are just a little too similar for comfort.  Lucky then that they can "eat around" the issues. 

In other news, I refer you again to Christopher McCamley's blog: he's been doing a bit of investigation into the ACP and how they run their website.  It seems, despite all their talk of tolerance, censorship and their anger over priests being silenced (they were censured - different thing), they employ a rather tough line in censoring the comments that are left on their site: they delete those comments they don't agree with.  What's new?  Self-styled liberals tend to be the most illiberal of all.  Indeed a friend of mine refuses to call them liberals or progressives because they actually want to limit freedom and make their own view the only valid one. 

I remember when in seminary we were constantly being lectured to by these "liberals" - I can say this now because the Visitation Report is out.  Time and time again our formators tried to quash orthodoxy and expose us to "progressive ideas" which, funnily enough, always contradicted the teaching of the Church, the will of the Holy Father and at times even the Commandments.  To contradict their opinions, to expose them, was to bring wrath on your head - which many of us did many times.   There was no room for dialogue - to question (even innocently) what they were preaching was to expose yourself as bigot: "You're so closed".  There was one way to do things: their way.  There was one way to "do liturgy" - their way.  There was one way to be a priest: their way.  Veer from this and they would do what they could to get rid of you.  So am I upset that certain "liberal" priests are being investigated?  Not at all. 

Another interesting opinion for you, from a friend of mine.  Looking at the moves which the government seems to be taking to legislate for abortion here, he wondered if there was an economic reason for this.  His argument goes like this:  Ireland is the best place to have a baby - the safest.  Pregnant women are well cared for (absolutely true - our health professionals are fantastic, God bless them).  If a woman has a difficult pregnancy, everything is done for her and the baby; hospitals will even keep a pregnant woman at risk of serious complications in care for the duration of her pregnancy to make sure that she is looked after and any emergencies are dealt with quickly (the pro-aborts don't tell you about that when they are raking up the hard stories).

However, such care costs money - lots of money, money Ireland is struggling to find in these hard times.  Is it possible, my friend has asked, that abortion is being seen as a cheaper option for a difficult pregnancy? That abortion is cheaper than having to provide for babies and children that have serious medical needs?  And so in order to keep the national budget on course, certain cuts have to be made??  Would a government be so cynical, so uncaring? What do you think?   Are the Minister of Health and the Fine Gael/Labour government considering the financial benefits of legalised abortion?

Hail Glorious St Patrick

Yesterday we celebrated St Patrick's Day.  Between ceremonies and meetings with friends for the feast day I did not get a chance to blog.  

St Patrick is a most interesting Saint, one, though, who has been reinvented to fit in with the celebration of Irish nationalism.  As I was growing up I came to like St Patrick's Day less and less, and now that the forces of secularisation have created "Paddy's Day" and cut it from the religious, I have even less time for the "traditional" celebrations.   

Am I a killjoy?  Well I'm sure many will think I am.  But I do favour a proper celebration of the feast and an authentic honouring of the man whose feast it is - the spiritual father and apostle of the Irish.  St Patrick was an extraordinary individual: a man of deep faith - a man whose heart was firmly fixed on Christ and in communion with Rome, a man of the Scriptures and a man immersed in the theology of Christ and the Holy Trinity, as his works reveal - that is only to be expected given that he studied at the great school of Lerins. 

I believe we need to reclaim St Patrick - take him back from the bawdy drunken secularists who are using him as an excuse for a knees up - and worse as news out today tells us there has been a rush for the morning after pill in the last few days, God help us!   As we launch out in the process of renewal, St Patrick must have an important role, and Pope Benedict has alluded to this in his prayer for the Church in Ireland.  

The study of St Patrick's life and teaching will reintroduce the Church in Ireland to Scripture and orthodox theology, particularly to the concept of  ecclesial communion; to prayer and the importance of a personal relationship with God; to the beauty of creation, though with the caveat that we do not worship nature as our more "ecologically" minded people seem to.   Reflecting on Patrick's mission we can rediscover evangelical zeal and courage - no fearful hiding from issues with Patrick - excommunicating Coroticus and his soldiers was a daring act, yet it needed to be done. 

St Patrick was not afraid of negative public opinion - some of the established Christians in Ireland did not like him.  It seems he was too strident for them - he probably disturbed their comfortable, lukewarm Christianity, and so he challenged them.  There was no licking up to them, putting them on committees to keep them on side or doing everything he could to keep them in.  He preached the Gospel, and like St Paul he put it to them: "Take it, or leave it".   Yet he was also the soul of charity and tenderness: the virtues of prudent and charity helped him harmonise the zeal and gentleness.  It is the genius of the Saints which reveals how one can be tough and gentle at the same time: in recent years we have seen this in Blessed Teresa of Calcutta and Ven. John Paul II.

And Patrick is a true father.  In his Letter to Coroticus he is defending his Irish children, because, as St Paul said in his letters, Patrick has fathered us in faith, and so as we struggle with the various issues which seem to be creating problems for the Church here, we must turn to him.  Blessed John XXIII used to say the Lord every night before going to sleep: "Lord, I've done my best, it's your Church, look after it now" (or words to that effect).  So too with Patrick: we Irish should say to him: "Dear Father, Patrick, Ireland is your responsibility, look after it and help us do what we can to bring renewal".  It would be no harm if our Beloved Patron took his crosier and beat some sense into the Irish Church - it would do us all a little good.  Is that too negative?  Perhaps, though I think not. 

So now, how do we reclaim the feast of St Patrick?   As Christians we have Christianised pagan feasts before, though ironically this pagan feast was once a religious feast.  One possibility could be to add a second feast day in honour of St Patrick - his relics were not translated so that's a non-runner unless we kindly ask the Church of Ireland to allow us exhume his remains from the grave in Downpatrick (if any are left - if he's there at all) and translate them to a worthy shrine and then mark the day as a feast.  We could celebrate the day he arrived in Ireland or the day he established the Primatial See in Armagh - that could be celebrated as a day of evangelisation - and devoid of secular interest could be a feast to celebrate faith.  But those dates are now probably known only to God. 

All that said, why should we give up his dies natalis? So maybe it is time for some counter cultural revolutionary action.  Seeing as the orthodox Christians are now the dissidents in Ireland, we should do some dissenting from the national booze up.  A parade of our own with the Blessed Sacrament and a statue of St Patrick, Holy Mass and prayers and lots of hymns: good old fashioned hymns that rouse the soul - none of the anemic stuff that has bored us to tears for the last twenty years.   No guitars or fiddles just a good organ and strong human voices booming out "Faith of our Fathers" making the secularists nervous and wondering is Patrick himself coming on the clouds with a good hefty crosier to rid Ireland once again of the metaphorical serpents of paganism and disbelief.  Ah, one can but dream!

Rant over.  I had better say my prayers.  First Vespers of St Joseph - another wonderful feast. 

St Joseph, Father of Priests

The Holy Father, taking his cue from the Gospel, dedicated his Angelus talk yesterday to St Joseph, and in doing so, entrusted the pastors of the Church to the Saint's care.  

What a wonderful model for priests - the foster-father of Jesus who put aside all his hopes and dreams, to answer the call of God to become the legal father and protector of the Messiah.  Priests are asked to do the same: to leave everything to follow the Lord, even to diminish so Christ can increase.  Fulton Sheen once said that a priest is not his own, and that is true, and it is part of the struggle of being a priest - dying to oneself, giving of oneself, holding nothing back - as true fatherhood requires. 

But also, like St Joseph, the priest becomes the silent man of the Gospel ("hidden with Christ in God", as St Paul puts it) - not silent in the sense that he does not open his mouth and proclaim the Gospel - he does, but he is silent in the sense that he does not get in the way of the Word of God, but rather proclaims it as given by Christ.    Joseph was silent because he heard the Word of God and did what that Word asked of him, so too with the priest.  That is why it is sad to see and hear priests who teach their own opinions when they judge the Gospel to be "unliveable" or the teachings of the Church lacking in compassion, or old fashioned, or when they seek to curry favour with people or the fashions of an age.  Here the example of humble Joseph who was entrusted with the household of God becomes a model for us.

The Holy Father's talk is here.  And here is another talk the Pope gave on St Joseph in which he proposes him as a model for priests.

"Ite Ad Joseph!"

As the Church continues to celebrate the canonisation of our new saints, one of them, St Andre Bessette, has a message for the Church of our time: "Ite ad Joseph!"  Go to Joseph.  St Andre was the founder of Montreal's great sanctuary to St Joseph, and through this humble brother's ministry, devotion to the husband of Our Lady experienced a great renewal in the Americas. 

In the years since Vatican II many Catholics have forgotten about St Joseph - he seems to have been thrown out in the frenzied zeal of the reformers to "simplify" our faith.  Yet the life of the Church is impoverished when the Saints are discarded.  When we put the patron of the universal Church to one side, then that presents other problems.  St Joseph, the just man, chosen by God as husband for Mary and guardian and father figure for Jesus, has an important role to play in the life of the Church and in the lives of each individual Christian.  Hence, devotion to St Joseph brings many blessings and graces, as well as his protection.  The canonisation of St Andre is call from the Lord, I believe, reminding us that we must put Joseph back into our lives.  By the way, Wednesday is the day in the week dedicated to St Joseph.

My friend the exorcist (that sounds good!) was telling me about the power of St Joseph's intercession and protection.  The demons, he said, hate him because they had no power over him.  In his life on earth, it seems, Joseph resisted the temptations they laid in front of him: his love for Jesus and Mary was so strong, so complete, no earthly pleasure could distract him.  Now there's a patron to have!  One of St Joseph's titles is "Terror of Demons", so that fits.  Apart from that, in St Joseph we see the model of the devoted servant of Christ.  We also see the model for men and for fathers in particular.  As radical, atheistic feminism has wrecked havoc in society and the Church, St Joseph provides for us men a refreshing antidote to the misandry which has become so prevalent in our times. 

In this time of renewal and reform, we have a great friend in St Joseph, as many Saints have found.  St Teresa of Avila said that whenever she went to Joseph for help, he never failed her: hence she placed the reform of the Carmelite Order into his hands, dedicating the first house of the reform to him.  We would do well to dedicate all our efforts for renewal, personal and institutional, to him and allow him to lead us.  St Andre once said that devotion to St Joseph was the way to heaven - how true that is.  As St Joseph safely conducted Jesus and Mary into Egypt and then to Nazareth, he can bring us, safely and surely, to heaven. And let's face it, with Joseph on our side we're in with a pretty influential person: after all, if he asks Jesus to let us into heaven, can the One he brought up refuse him?  Not likely!! 

Prayer to St Joseph:

Remember, most pure spouse of Mary ever Virgin, my loving protector, Saint Joseph, that no one ever had recourse to your protection or asked for your aid without obtaining relief. Confiding, therefore, in your goodness, I come before you and humbly implore you. Despise not my petitions, foster-father of the Redeemer, but graciously receive them. Amen

Collect for the feast of St Andre Bessette:

Lord our God, friend of the lowly,
You gave your servant, Brother André,
a great devotion to Saint Joseph
and a special commitment to the poor and afflicted.
Through his intercession
help us to follow his example of prayer and love
and so come to share with him in Your glory.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.