In the School of St. Joseph: Silence, Obedience, and Trust
Our faith lives have many layers, beginning with the delineation of our personal and communal prayer. Within this dual approach of personal and communal prayer falls our devotional life, among other aspects (e.g., liturgical, scriptural, seasonal, etc.). A community (parish, monastery, family) can have a particular devotion, and individuals within that community might have additional devotions. As we celebrate this month of St. Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, consider his role in the Incarnation. In relation to Christ, the Word of God made flesh, St. Joseph offers us a day-to-day example of our earthly labors in our work, prayer, and sacrifice, as well as an example of life lived in the virtues of faith, hope, and love.
St. Joseph will always lead us to the silence of Bethlehem, he will lead us to the earnest labor of the workshop in Nazareth, and ultimately, he will lead us to a unique perspective in caring for our relationship with Christ. Noise abounds around us, and the monks will tell you we face this difficulty even in the monastery. St. Joseph teaches us, by his holy way of silence, how to move more deeply into prayer as we adore our Savior. Imagine the awe St. Joseph had for Jesus as a young boy and as he grew into adulthood. As the one who taught Jesus how to pray, the life of St. Joseph offers much to consider in our daily prayer.
In the Gospel of St. Matthew, St. Joseph is presented as a “just” and “righteous” man, one who is in right relationship with God. St. Joseph conformed his life to the will of God, which was to care for Mary and the child, Jesus. He attuned his whole life to the Word of God, requiring of him a unique trust in God. This begs us to ask the question, How do we trust God? How do we trust his will in our lives? How do we abandon ourselves to Divine Providence, taking God at his word?
St. Joseph was just and righteous because he was docile and obedient to God; considered faithful because he offered a sacrifice through trust in what God asked of him. It wasn’t blind obedience – St. Joseph had the reality of what was being asked squarely in front of him. What was asked of him required St. Joseph to change his heart, to convert his life, and to choose something different. This generally doesn’t happen in us naturally; our nature is not formed that way. Conversion requires us to hear God’s word and be able, even when it is contrary to our desires, to put into practice the desires of God.
Consider that St. Joseph didn’t debate or negotiate; he simply obeyed when asked to change his direction of life. This type of obedience requires an intense listening, hanging on every word – to attune our hearts, the ears of our hearts, to the spoken Word of God. Consider those things that challenge you in your life. Brutal honesty is necessary here, we are human with every capacity toward sin.
Consider one of the more difficult virtues we strive for in our lives, whatever our vocation is. St. Paul in his First Letter to the Thessalonians wrote, “This is God’s will for you, your sanctification. Therefore, avoid all unchastity” (2 Thes. 4:3). To grow in holiness is more than avoiding unchastity; rather, growing in holiness is to be chaste. Chastity goes beyond attempts at refraining from something; rather, it is putting on the desire for a way of life, allowing us to give the full gift of self. St. Joseph loved Mary, and that meant he was willing to dedicate himself to what was best for her and the Divine Son as he lived a chaste life. He put all of his love and life at the service of these two persons, and so fulfilled his own vocation.
Living a chaste life is more than celibacy or faithfulness within the married vocation – it is freedom from all deadly sin, living by a rule of life that makes it possible to give oneself to others in the way that is best for that other person. Living chaste lives allows us to see purely (to see God in another person) with reverence toward the Divine Image he or she holds. Living chaste lives is to see the goodness of a created thing – a human being – free from any disordered affections, to see the Creator in the created.
St. Joseph also gives us a model of how to relate to Mary, the Mother of God. It comes to us through tradition that Mary is the model disciple, the first disciple to say “yes.” Given to us at Calvary, St. Joseph teaches us to treat Mary with reverence, with chaste love, to help her fulfill her vocation as disciple, apostle, and mother, as she seeks to help us grow in the likeness of her Son. To love Mary in this way, as we love the Church, is to love her Son, Jesus. We love Jesus as we adore him in the Eucharist. And in this adoration, consider that Mary and Joseph lived perpetually in the real presence of Christ.
St. Paul VI said of St. Joseph,
This is the secret of the greatness of St. Joseph… he made his life a service, a sacrifice, to the mystery of the Incarnation and to the redemptive mission that is joined to it; he gave the total gift of himself, of his life, his work; having converted his human vocation to domestic love into the superhuman oblation of himself, of his heart and of all his abilities, into the love placed at the service of the Messiah conceived in his home.
In this vein, a year ago, I asked the monks of St. Benedict’s Abbey to take on a particular communal devotion to St. Joseph in praying a Litany of St. Joseph for the intention of vocations. We pray this Litany daily at the end of dinner. Similarly, I humbly ask you to pray this Litany with us for men discerning a monastic vocation, and to pray it also for yourselves.
Difficulty and temptation consistently plague humanity, and surely we are not free from this. Ask for the intercession of St. Joseph, who is a model of courage and fortitude, and protector of the Church. He teaches us by his holy way of silence, leading us along the way of deeper prayer. St. Joseph was the earthly father of Jesus, and through his virtue and patronage, he is a spiritual father to us, who leads us along the way to Christ.