Review for Religious

Review for Religious

1943 March

THE prerogatives of St. Joseph, spouse of Mary and foster-father of our Lord Jesus Christ, were explained in an article that appeared in an early number of this REVIEW. The purpose of the present article is to direct attention to certain traits of character in this great saint and to offer a few comments on some of his virtues. The character of a saint, like that of any other man, has its natural elements that have not a little to do with his sanctity, often giving it a special form or cast or intensity in some specific direction. Holiness, we know, does not destroy natural gifts. It purifies and elevates them, holds out worthy aims and motives, and directs natural ability into wholesome channels. We know a great deal of the natural dispositions of Saints Peter and Paul and John, because the writers of the New Testament tell us much of what these saints said and did. They tell us very little, in any direct way, of St. Joseph. St. Matthew (1: 19) mentions that he was "a just man," which is the scriptural way of saying that he was a virtuous man. The same evangelist indicates in connection with the above statement that he was not a man who acted hastily or on impulse, by saying, "he thought on these things." Joseph therefore deliberated when face to face with important decisions. In this respect he was unlike the impetuous Peter.

From these and a few other brief expressions found in the Gospel we reasonably infer that St. Joseph was naturally a rather quiet, silent, and unobtrusive man. He moves through life unobserved. Not a single word of his is recorded in the Gospel narrative. This is quite remarkable in view of the position he held in the Holy Family. He reflects, he acts, he wonders at the momentous events that happen in his family and in which he plays an important part, but he is never the spokesman (cf. Matthew 1: 19; 2: 14, 21-23; Luke 2: 33, 48).

Indeed, Joseph's very silence might be thought to account for the late growth of devotion to him in the Church. The first two or three centuries after the Apostles tell us nothing of St. Joseph. His name is not found in the early calendar of the saints. However, this is sufficiently accounted for by the circumstances that in the early centuries of the existence of the Church, only martyrs received public veneration. Some of the Fathers of the Church do indeed speak of him and his prerogatives, but before the days of St. Bernard (1091-1153) devotion to St. Joseph seems to have been almost entirely of a private character. A church was dedicated to his honor for the first time in the West, in the year 1129 at Bologna. His feast, though celebrated by local churches in the middle ages, was not placed in the Roman calendar until the second half of the fifteenth century. Thus Gospel and tradition combined to invest the spouse of Mary and devotion to him with an atmosphere of obscurity and silence that lasted over a thousand years and is strongly suggestive of the hidden life the great patriarch led while on earth. But the humble Joseph was not to remain in obscurity permanently in the life of Christ's Church on earth. God's ways have always been to exalt, in due time, him that humbles himself. For the past five hundred years devotion to the foster-father of our Lord has gone on increasing by leaps and bounds until today it stands in popularity next to that of the Mother of God herself. And, as if the Church wished to make up for the late recognition he received in the devotional life of the faithful, the supreme Pontiff Pius IX made him Patron of the Universal Church and accorded him a second feast to do him honor under the new title.

There is much in the life and character of St. Joseph that does not lie on the surface, but is discovered by reflection on the scanty items the evangelists have recorded of him. If we take into account these few items and with them the delicate demands of the position he had to fill in the lives of Jesus and Mary, we shall be convinced, I believe, that St. Joseph must have been a man of sensitive and profound faith and of constant devotion to prayer.

Had he not been so, it is scarcely conceivable that infinite Wisdom would have selected him for the office he held. On reading what is said of Joseph in the Gospel, we cannot fail to see that he was always docile and obedient to legitimate authority, no matter how its commands were made known to him. This obedience had its roots in faith. A deep faith that had developed into an ever-present sense of the fundamental truths of revelation was the distinctive mark of all the patriarchs of old, of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the rest. Strong characters these men were, and strong their faith and trust in God. So too was it with St. Joseph, who forms the connecting link between the great saints of the old dispensation and those of the new. There was no weakness in him. Once the will of God was clear to him, be never hesitated. We see this illustrated at his very first appearance in the Gospel narrative when an angel of the Lord bade him not to fear to take to himself Mary his wife. Again, his faith is manifest in the trying circumstances under which he traveled with Mary to Bethlehem in obedience to the decree of a pagan emperor, and in the command be received at night  to take the Child and his mother and fly into Egypt. By faith he saw God and God's will in the little duties of his life no less than in the important charges entrusted to him. Apart from a few extraordinary events, that life of his was, externally, a very ordinary one. His daily routine at Nazareth was much like that of any other Jew of the poorer class who was head of a small family. It consisted of his daily work as a carpenter, little dealings with the townspeople, his converse with Jesus and Mary, probably a little recreation at the end of the day, and the weekly Sabbath- ay rest. Common and monotonous it was, one might say. So it would have been, had not the light and strength of faith been its animating principle.

Faith in God permeated St. Joseph's habit of thought, was his support and source of joy. God and His fatherly providence, the angels in their constant errands of mercy and love between heaven and earth, the souls of his saintly ancestors in the other world, the great spiritual truths revealed to the patriarchs and prophets, all these were as real to him as the sky over his head or the material house in which he lived with Jesus and Mary. By faith he knew that Mary was the chosen spouse of the Holy Ghost, and that the Boy who daily lived in his presence, growing into manhood under his very eyes, was the promised Messias, the very Son of God. He had heard holy Simeon say: "Behold, this child is set for the fall and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted" (Luke 2: 34). The words never passed from Joseph's memory. He pondered their meaning. He thought of them when he saw the Child at prayer and at play, and later when he observed him at work and noted his ready and humble obedience, and the wisdom and grace that became manifest with the passing years. To the purely human eyes of the neighbors, and even to "his brethren," of whom the evangelist was to say later that they "did not believe in him, " Jesus was just "the carpenters son"; Mary, the mother of a some- what unusual young man, nothing more. But to the supernaturally enlightened mind of St. Joseph, Jesus was the Redeemer of the world, the long expected of nations; Mary, the mother of the Son of God.

These were the mysteries in the midst of which Joseph moved and lived at Nazareth. We have no natural means of ascertaining the effects on his interior life of this daily and hourly contact with the supernatural. Only the Holy Ghost, through the power of His grace coupled with prayerful consideration on our part, can reveal them to us. But we know that Joseph was a thoughtful man, endowed with a reflective cast of mind. He prayed and meditated. And what is of much greater consequence, his soul was enriched with marvelous graces. This means that he had and cherished holy thoughts and desires, was the daily recipient of lights and inspirations from above, was ever growing and maturing in holiness in the very noonday light of faith.

Faith and the spirit of faith, thus highly developed in the soul of the spouse of Mary, found their natural expression in prayer. We said above that he must have been devoted to prayer; he was a man of prayer. In one sense, everyone must be a man of prayer. Prayer is a fundamental duty of man. The reason is simple. Every intelligent being must worship God, that is, acknowledge his dependence on Him as the Creator and Lord of all things, and this is prayer. Everyone must praise God, reverence His Holy Name, and this is prayer. All men must give thanks to God for the gifts and benefits they receive from His hands, must petition Him for help and grace, implore pardon for their sins and infidelities, all of which is prayer. Prayer therefore is a duty incumbent on everyone, and to this extent everyone  must be a man of prayer.

But when we say of St. Joseph that be was a man of prayer, we mean much more than that be fulfilled this general and fundamental duty. We mean that he put in practice the scriptural exhortation to pray always, to pray without ceasing (Luke 18: 1: I Thessalonians 5: 17), and he did so before either our Lord or St. Paul had explicitly enjoined it. He lived in the spirit of prayer. The thoughts and sentiments of his heart were habitually directed to his Father in heaven in a conscious attitude of faith and hope and love, of praise and thanksgiving, of petition and oblation of himself and of all he did. This means much more than praying well at stated times of the day. Joseph did that too, as did all God-fearing men in Israel. They were bound to do this. But St. Joseph made the whole day a prayer. Whether he was with Jesus and Mary in their house at Nazareth, or working at the carpenter's bench, or talking to a neighbor or customer, or trudging along the dusty road on one of the three annual pilgrimages to the holy city, he bore himself with a composure and recollection that gave evidence of his prayerful soul. One may say, how could it have been otherwise? Was be not blessed with the companionship of Jesus and Mary? Very true. He saw and touched what the patriarchs and prophets before him bad longed to see and had not seen. And yet, he lived by faith and received the reward of faith. With his bodily eyes he beheld Jesus, the Son of Mary; by faith he believed that this same Jesus was the Son of the living God. Certainly, the wonderful circumstances in which St. Joseph lived at Nazareth were most favorable to prayer and piety and to holiness of life in general. Catholics in the world of the twentieth century will probably say the same thing of the circumstances in which religious live in their several communities today; and if they do, they are right. A great happiness and a fertile opportunity for sanctification it is to live in a house in which our Lord dwells. But we must remember that while it is a privilege and a grace, it is also a responsibility. The question whether we are profiting by this opportunity as well as Joseph profited by the blessing that was his while he lived under the same roof as Jesus and Mary is a matter that deserves our frequent consideration. We can be certain that he availed himself in full measure of the holy example of the Blessed Virgin to become more like to her in angelic purity of heart, in modesty of demeanor and, most of all, in ardent love for God and man. He was an apt subject for learning from the Immaculate Virgin and her divine Son. He was humble, single-minded in outlook, silent and recollected, docile to the inspirations of the Holy Ghost. He was the head of the Holy Family. In legal form and rank, the order of precedence was Joseph, Mary, Jesus. But in respect to holiness of life, the order was the reverse, thus: Jesus, Mary, Joseph. These three represented the highest summit of holiness ever attained, or possible of attainment on earth by any individual or a group of individuals. They may be said to have constituted the first religious community in the Church, St. Joseph being the Superior; and they set up a singularly high ideal of perfection for the imitation of all succeeding communities.

Daily prayer is an essential function or practice of every religious community. Among the Jews the recital of set prayers, whether in the family circle or in the synagogue, was chiefly the duty of men. Women and children Joined in. It may appear astounding, but it is true that we are in possession of a prayer which was said by St. Joseph twice every day, morning and evening, from the time he was able to read until the day of his death. It is an inspired prayer, taken from the books of Deuteronomy and Numbers' and was the first prayer taught to Jewish children. The opening verses read as follows:

Hear, 0 Israel,
The Lord our God is one Lord.
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart,
And with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength,
And these words which I command thee this day
Shall be in thy heart,
And thou shalt tell them to thy children,
And thou shalt meditate upon them sitting in thy house
And walking on thy journey,
Sleeping and rising.
And thou shalt bind them as a sign on thy band,
And they shall be and shall move between thy eyes.
And thou shalt write them in the entry
And on the doors of thy house.

The recitation of this prayer twice a day—the entire prayer consists of sixty-one lines—was obligatory on all the men in Israel, and it is thought that our Blessed Lord Himself said it regularly. The great commandment of love is stated and then emphasized by an injunction that calls for frequent, if not continual meditation on its contents—the obligation of centering all one's thoughts and desires and love on God our Creator and Lord. No doubt  2Deuteronomy 6: 4-9; II: 13-21; Numbers 15: 37-41. On this whole subject cf. Willam: Manf the Mother of Jews, translated by Eckboff. p. 143, ff. there were God-fearing Jews all over the world who made a serious effort to comply with this precept. This is precisely what we have supposed St. Joseph did habitually in the course of his everyday life. He furnishes religious of every order and congregation a perfect pattern of prayer, and not only of prayer, but of every kind of virtue.

We must not fail to take into account the fact that St. Joseph was a workman. He handled the implements of daily toil, enjoyed little or no leisure, was industrious and contented with his occupation. Work is the law of life. It absorbs a multitude of troubles, mental and physical. Many people would be more happy if they worked more and talked less, in imitation of our saint. He spent his days in hard work, in poverty, obscurity, and prayer, and in this way fulfilled admirably the duties God had laid upon him. At the present time it is almost taken for granted that great things can be accomplished only by means of wealth and position and influence with the mighty. So it is with the material enterprises of this world.

But in the realms of the spiritual, earthly norms are reversed. God often chooses men destitute of the means which, humanly speaking, make for success and through them achieves great spiritual results, "that no flesh should glory in his sight" (1Cor. 1:28). He did this in the case of St. Joseph, the Cure of Ars, Therese of Lisieux. It is true that in many other instances our Lord has deigned to make use of the services of men and women of outstanding natural ability and varied human acquirements for the spread of His kingdom on earth and the glory of His Holy Name. But in all such cases natural endowments were accompanied by a high degree of the love of God and of prayer, profound humility and obedience. These are the virtues that make for the success which alone counts in the eyes of God.

In these dreadful times, religious may well turn with increased devotion to the patron of the universal Church and implore his intercession. By fervent prayer to him and by the practice of the lowly virtues of humility, obedience, and poverty that distinguished his career on earth they have it in their power to do much for the cause of Christ and His Church and for the spiritual and temporal welfare of millions of souls.