St. Joseph, Sun of unrivalled luster!

"The Almighty has concentrated in St. Joseph, as in a Sun of unrivalled luster, the combined light and splendor of all the other saints." - St. Gregory Nazianzen, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

What do you need today? If you're anything like me, the answer may be:
1. Miracles
2. A cappuccino
3. Sleep
And I don't know if that's the right order, but probably the miracles come first!

I have just returned from a pilgrimage of miracles (and cappuccino, and just the right amount of sleep), and yet would you believe it? I'm in search of more! More of all three, but especially more miracles. I had the absolute joy of praying before the tombs/bodies/remains of many of my favorite saints of old, and some new ones, including:

St. Dominic Savio
St. Don Bosco
St. Mary Mazzarello (helper of John Bosco)
St. Anthony of Padua
Bl. Luca of Belludi (friend of St. Anthony)
St. Luke the Evangelist
St. Charles Borromeo
Blessed Idelphonso Schuster
St. Andrew Corsini, Carmelite
Apostles Philip, James, Jude, and Simon
St. Philip Neri
Blessed Fra Angelico
St. Catherine of Siena
St. Ignatius Loyola
St. Francis Xavier
St. Camillus de Lellis
Pope St. John Paul II
Pope St. Pius X
Pope St. John XXIII
Pope St. Paul VI
Venerable Antonietta Meo
St. Monica . . . 

If you're tired just reading this list, you might imagine I was tired making the pilgrimage, but I'm here to assure you that reading is much more tiring than seeking out (or being surprised by) the saints! In fact, I wasn't very tired, and the occasional gelato did more than enough to keep me going, to the bemusement of those who led me around Rome (endless thanks, C and T!).

You see, the saints are alive and well, even as their mortal coils (now shuffled off and free of the duty to house their immortal souls) either retain their living tones, take on darker hues, or disintegrate as we would expect them to do . . . But man-oh-man, these saints are continuing to befriend us in the Mystical Body, taking their places in the Communion of Saints and ready to intercede for us at a moment's notice.

I always remember fondly the years of homeschooling my boys because whatever else did or (usually) did not get done, if it was a feast of any level (from barely-heard-of-would-be-saint all the way to solemnity), you can bet one of us tried to get the day "off" from even our own extremely relaxed version of Catholic unschooling.

On St. Joseph's feast - highest solemnity! - we definitely took the day to celebrate, and I hope you will too, whether you have kids at home, kids grown, or are a kid yourself!

These days my thoughts turn less to cupcakes and more to favors I want the saints to procure for me from the infinite, but sometimes seemingly elusive, mercy and love of our awesome Almighty God. And with St. Joseph, we have every reason to believe that we'll get what we ask for because He who obeyed Joseph while they walked the earth will certainly grant his petitions now that they are walking in Heaven. (Or possibly reclining.)

One of the holy cards I brought back from Italy, where I had found, or been found by, the numerous saints listed above, was from Turin where St. John Bosco founded the Salesians, a religious order of men dedicated to helping educate boys in the spirit of St. Francis de Sales. John loved St. Francis because of his gentleness, and I loved discovering years ago that this St. Francis really had to work on what later became his captivating gentleness, because by nature he was choleric and prone to anger!

The holy card I got has on the front a picture of St. Francis de Sales kneeling before a crucifix, a quill pen in his hand and an open book before him. Angels are floating above him, quite interested in what he's writing (although he has his eyes on Christ crucified), while in the background we see a statue of Mary and little Jesus. The card has on the back one of St. Francis de Sales' sayings in Italian:

"Fate tutto per amore, nulla per forza," which translates to this beautiful advice: "Do everything through love, nothing through force." 

This was exactly Don (Italian for Father) Bosco's approach, and while I can't say I always follow it, I sure want to!

I've been thinking about St. Joseph, and it occurred to me in one of those rare moments (when my thinking yielded a thought that wasn't instantly about food) that he and Jesus must have spent a LOT of time together. We glide over those thirty years of silence as if the only thing that happened was the Finding in the Temple, but we can imagine another set of rosary mysteries ("The Hidden Mysteries") that might include "Jesus loses his first tooth," and "St. Joseph teaches Jesus how to shape, cut, join, and finish wood," as well as "Mary and Joseph teach Jesus how to read," and so on. He, Our Lord, was like us in all things but sin. He was also unlike us in that He was God, but He willed to be little like us and actually learn, in His human nature, as we do, gradually. At the very least we can remember that He was born into a family, and spent not only his childhood years with Mary and Joseph, but even up to His thirtieth year when He launched into the three years of His public mission.

Wow! Thirty years - and (most likely) most of them with Joseph as well as Mary. Which means St. Joseph, after Mary, was the person who spent the most time with Jesus. Not just three years, like some of the apostles, but perhaps ten times that long! What friends they must have become, as we can become with our parents and our children when we grow (or they grow) into adults. What conversations they must have had, from Jesus' first articulate words to the last words He and Joseph said to each other as Joseph lay dying. Because the Scriptures mention Mary's presence at the foot of the Cross, but not Joseph's, we can safely believe that Joseph had already passed out of this life and into the next before Christ's passion and death and resurrection, and what a death that must have been, with Jesus and Mary beside him.

When St. Therese was made Doctor of the Church in 1997, we had a super fun pizza party after an evening Mass in her honor (thank you, Father R!), and I remember at that party talking about the other Doctors of the Church (thirty-two others at that time) and asking a smart friend (the same T who led me around Rome and re-awakened my devotion to St. Peter's just a few days ago), "Who is St. Lawrence of Brindisi?" It turns out he was a Capuchin from the 16th century, and in Fr. Calloway's Consecration to St. Joseph book I found this wonderful quote from St. Lawrence:

"Though not Jesus' father by generation, St. Joseph was His father in His upbringing, His care, and the affection of His heart. It seems to me, therefore, that Joseph is clearly the holiest of all the saints, holier than the patriarchs, than the prophets, than the apostles, than all the other saints. The objection cannot be raised that the Lord said of John the Baptist: Among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist [Lk 7:28]. Just as this cannot be understood to mean that John is even holier than Christ or the Blessed Virgin, so it can't be understood in reference to blessed Joseph, the spouse of the Virgin Mary and the father of Christ, for just as husband and wife are one flesh, so too Joseph and Mary were one heart, one soul, one spirit. And as in that first marriage God created Eve to be like Adam, so in this second marriage He made Joseph to be like the Blessed Virgin in holiness and justice."

As an American who doesn't know Italian, faced with a myriad of glorious basilicas, cathedrals, vistas, sculptures, etc., all I could do was repeatedly express in one globally understood word:

WOW!

I feel the same after reading, typing, and re-reading St. Lawrence of Brindisi's description of the marriage of Mary and Joseph.

Wow!!!

Thank You, Father, for sending the Holy Spirit to enlighten and prompt the Doctors to teach us the otherwise unimaginable intimacy You delighted to behold in the Holy Family!

St. Joseph, you have answered so many of our prayers. You have quietly taken them to Jesus - or whispered them into His ear while you held Him close - and He has, as always, responded with everything we needed. The list of the miracles you've obtained for us is a wonder to recall, from home sales and home purchases that allowed us to live in peace in exile, to the infinitely greater graces of beautiful deaths in union with the Church . . . and in between, on some level of combined earthly and heavenly bliss: marriages in the heart of the Church, children loaned to us to bring up for God's glory, perseverance in receiving the sacraments and loving Christ and the Church, cures that bring health and joy back into our homes, and jobs that give us dignity and allow us to work for the salvation of souls. 

Thank you, good St. Joseph! Thank you for every grace you've obtained for us: those we've begged for and those you gave us unasked; those we remember, and those we never even noticed, but which, like every good father, you anticipated and gave us before we even knew we needed them.

We come to you once again, grateful and yet still in need. Please scoop us up into your strong arms that so wonderfully held little Jesus and protected Him. Protect us too, and obtain for us from dear Jesus all the miracles we so urgently need: the healings, the peace, the work, the play, the home sales and home purchases, but most of all the life of joyful, peaceful conversation and intimacy with Jesus and Mary that you lived on earth and now live with them forever in Heaven.

St. Francis de Sales, on my mind because of his wonderful advice on that holy card, said some very exciting things about St. Joseph. The Oblates of St. Francis de Sales tell us on their website:

In May of 1621, Pope Gregory XV had ordered that the March 19 feast of St. Joseph henceforth be observed by the universal Church. On March 19, 1622, the first time this feast was observed by the whole Church, Francis preached an important sermon on the virtues of St. Joseph to the Visitation Sisters in Annecy.
Towards the end of this profoundly beautiful sermon, Francis added: 

“What more remains for us to say now, except that we cannot doubt at all that this glorious saint has great influence in heaven with Him who so favored him as to raise him there in body and soul . . . for how could He who had been so obedient to him all through his life, have refused this grace to St. Joseph?” (pages 124-25 of Oblate Father Joseph F. Chorpenning’s Sermon Texts on Saint Joseph by Francis de Sales: Toronto, Peregrina Publishing, 2000)
St. Joseph does not utter a single word in Scripture. But, in this same sermon Francis imagines that the silent Joseph now addresses the newly risen Jesus in these words: 

“My Lord, remember, if it please You, that when You came from heaven to earth, I received You into my house, into my family, and, as soon as You were born, I received You into my arms. Now that You are returning to heaven, take me with You; I received You into my family, receive me now into Yours . . . I have carried You in my arms, now carry me upon Yours; and, as I took care to nourish and guide You during the course of Your mortal life, take care of me and lead me into life eternal” (page 125).


Francis then concludes:

“How can we doubt that Our Lord caused to rise with Him to heaven in body and soul the glorious St. Joseph . . . St. Joseph, then, is in heaven in body and soul, there is no doubt” (page 125).

+  +  +

What a magnificent picture we see with the help of the gentle and wise St. Francis de Sales: in Heaven today, while most await the return of their bodies at the end of time, there is a holy family, the Holy Family, already reunited with their bodies as well as with each other. How wonderful to be able to imagine them and know that while our imagination may miss out on the vibrancy of the colors of their clothes or the glory with which Jesus's wounds sparkle and shine or the beauty of Our Lady's face, but we do not err in imagining them together and in their glorified bodies!

May St. Joseph, in the heart of the Holy Family, shower you with Therese's roses today. We have no doubt that little Therese and that imp Marcel have snuck their way into the midst of this happy family, even if our little sister and brother have no bodies at this juncture! As the Christmas carol put on our lips a few short months ago, "Oh that we were there! Oh that we were there!" 

Meanwhile, let's not waste this great feast. Let's ASK FOR THE MOON - or some other, more practical miracles that have been commended to our prayers and we have possibly been praying for a long time. I'm sure today is the day for some of them, and I have proof that St. Joseph loves to surprise us by giving the very things we were ready to (finally) give up on.

No giving up!
Hope may not spring eternal, but by the grace of God may it spring throughout time until we reach eternity and have no more need of it. Then Love will be all in all, and for the nonce, let's do our best to trust Him who is that Love beyond telling.

Jesus, we trust in You!
Joseph, we trust in you too!
Mary, make sure St. Joseph and Jesus stop wrestling long enough to give us our wish list of miracles!

Draw me, we will run!