St. Joseph and our Happy, Holy Days

If we had reality TV and Time Magazine back in the days of Christ, do you think anyone would have paid any attention to what Joseph quietly accomplished?  Sometimes our quiet, unassuming Christian lives can seem to go unnoticed and perhaps seem unimportant.  And yet, were it not for St. Joseph and the decision he took to take Mary as his wife, things would have been very different. 

The Gospel describes Joseph as a righteous man.  A devout and practicing Jew who knew and believed the word of God, and given the opportunity to do God’s will, he did.  The choice wasn’t easy.  But in this and in all things, God gives us the choice.

We can be, like Joseph, open to God.  We can trust in Him.  God came to Joseph through an angel in a dream, and we can hear the word of God, to prayerfully discern his will for us only when we have surrendered.  In Joseph’s case to sleep, in our case to the peace of Christ, surrendering our notions of what’s important to the world, the awards and recognition, the gossip, the passive lies, the need for acceptance, the endless drone of the television and the internet, the celebrity news.
 
To look to, to pray to, to ask the intercession of St. Joseph is to connect with a man who not only touched and guided the young Jesus, but who was in effect himself very personally in a sacramental encounter with Christ, with his eyes firmly fixed on the glory of the Father as we are every time we come to Mass.

This is our Christmas.  This is what makes these very happy, holy days