Today we celebrate the memorial of Saint Joseph the Worker. God chose to be born into this world in human form, under the protective and loving care of a human father, who was a hard worker.
Brothers and sisters, one of the most beautiful things about our faith is that it doesn’t try to do the impossible and confine God to a little box. What do we mean? We mean that our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters declare that it is a blasphemy to say that God became a human being because he is too holy, and beyond this world. In other words, they put him in a box. He can’t do this, he can’t do that. Excuse me? Says who? If he wanted to appear to Moses beneath blazing fire, are you going to tell him he can’t? And if he decided to assume a true human nature, is your pride going to get in the way, and say, no he cannot? Hence the greatness of Saint Joseph lies in his humility and silence. We don’t see a man who impedes God’s designs, but one who humbly submits himself to a will greater than his own. Let’s see how today’s readings tie into this theme of being humble and allowing God to move and intervene in exactly the perfect way only he knows how and when to do so.
In the first reading, we continue through the Acts of the Apostles, and it is precisely this stubbornness to allow God to act anew for purposes and reasons he knows best, that the first ever Church council is convened. Two issues will come up:
- Should gentile converts be obliged to observe the Jewish Law?
- What should be done to ease the mutual cultural sensitivities between gentile and Jewish members of the Christian communities?
As we have seen thus far in our reading from Acts, many of the early Christians, especially those in Jerusalem, were converts from Judaism, and among these were Pharisees. They believed that Christianity was simply a development of their Judaism and not a radical newness which if lived correctly, enhanced and renewed their faith so that they would clearly be able to see that Jesus was its perfection. A liturgy which would far surpass the one prescribed by the same God in the Old Testament hanged in the balance. God was doing something new. He wasn’t the annihilator of the Commandments yet he was taking them to a new level—a more sublime level. Circumcision would become baptism. Slaughtered sacrifices in the Temple would become the all-Holy Eucharist… the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world—God from God, the Son now saying to the Father, “Forgive them.” No longer is an animal the sacrifice, but the very Son of God would become the atonement. This was the level of divine intervention they were blocking while placing God in a box. It is a stubbornness which for many Jews has persisted to our own day, as you all know.
Paul and Barnabas, on the other hand, who had seen how genuinely many Gentiles had accepted the Christian faith did not see that compulsory circumcision should be part of their newfound faith in Christ. They take a whole contingency to Jerusalem and had a strong presence at this first Council. Tomorrow we will see the results of how the Holy Spirit moved among them and led their discussions.
The Gospel for today deals with the same theme of the one this Sunday past. Jesus is the vine and we the branches and he prunes us, out of love, so as to bear more fruit.
What does this pruning consist of? Jesus explains:
“You have already been pruned by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you” John 15:4.
We are pruned, then, by Jesus’ words which transform us. For this reason Peter makes a distinction and declares that only Jesus has words which lead to everlasting life. His word has the power to get rid of what’s useless in our lives, and supplant it with the good and the meaningful. We give up what runs contrary to the spirit of Christ gladly every day, even if it is difficult to overcome acquired habits and even dependencies. Christ is greater than both and our strength to overcome must come from him.
“Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing” John 15.1. With this, we turn our attention to the one whom God appointed as the father-figure in Jesus life, Saint Joseph. We can imagine how immersed Joseph had to be, given he was aware of the divine nature of his Son.
He had been witness to supernatural revelations that at times, only he was privy to: the Archangel Gabriel in his dream, the graces that he saw flowing through our Blessed Mother, Mary.. the Magi and the star over Bethlehem… He eventually knew that though he was not the biological father of the child to be born, no other man was his biological father, and that he came directly from God. But then he had to grapple with the conviction that this child was indeed God from God, Light from Light. Perhaps this is why the great silence in the life of Joseph, for what does a simple man do before such awesome greatness?
As we know, there’s not too many references to Saint Joseph in the New Testament. Yet, the little we do have seems to point out a man who lived his life in simplicity and didn’t shun away from manual labour.
Devotion to Joseph began very early in the Eastern Church but eventually spread to the whole Church. The first church dedicated to his name was in 1129 in Bologna, Italy.
He was first added to the liturgical calendar in the 1400s, while the whole Church was placed under his patronage in 1870. In 1989, Pope John Paul II wrote a letter on Joseph entitled Redemptoris Custos (Guardian of the Redeemer) describing “the person and mission of Saint Joseph in the life of Christ and of the entire Church.” Joseph is the patron saint of the Mystical Body of Christ, the Christian family and schools, carpenters, fathers, labourers, and all individuals who appeal to his intercession, especially in the hour of death.
This special memorial to Saint Joseph the Worker is meant to coincide with Labour Day (International Workers’ Day) and so we ask him to intercede for all those who are struggling in some way to either find work or to carry out what is required of them, so that human beings can always grow, as the Church has always taught, in dignity through the gift of work. We ask Saint Joseph’s special blessing on all of us who are Franciscan. Saint Francis must have had a tender devotion to this saint given his love for the Incarnation and his delight in the infancy narratives of Jesus. Devotion to Saint Joseph was always present in the Franciscan Order, and the friars introduced it wherever they went. We ask him to pray for us so that we too can be special workers in God’s vineyard, who continue to be productive and full of joy in our employment therein. Amen.
Add comment
Comments