[Pyro7480]

Happy St. Joseph's Day everyone!

[Pyro7480]

Ping!

[Dajjal]

The Man Closest to Christ.

[Salvation]

May 1, 2003 St. Joseph the Worker bump!

[Pyro7480]

Bump for St. Joseph's Day 2004!

[Siobhan]

Happy St. Joseph's Day!

[Siobhan]

Happy St. Joseph's Day to you, Pyro! Thank you for this beautiful thread!

[Siobhan]

Happy St. Joseph's Day!

[dangus]

>> Because St. Joseph's Day is a Lenten solemnity, the tradition has been to serve meatless foods so that the meal becomes a "festive fast." <<

Oops... I was told that "a solemnity overrides the day of the week, including Sundays and Fridays, so it's not really a Friday, today, you can eat meat."

Yeah, don't say it, trads... That's what I get for listening to a Novus Ordo priest.

[dangus]

>>David's recipe for St. Joseph's pasta <<

I KNEW Saint Joseph was Italian. And to think some joker tried to tell me Jesus was Irish!

[Coleus]

Nice post, Happy St. Joseph's day to you too, and to everyone else.

Did your bishop give the diocese dispensation from fasting and abstinence for this day? Mine did. In yrs. past some did not, it was an Irish against Italian thing from what I was told. NY Cardinal Spellman never gave dispensation on St. Joseph's Day and always gave it for St. Patrick's Day.

[Coleus]

March 19, 2004

St. Joseph

The Bible pays Joseph the highest compliment: he was a “just” man. The quality meant a lot more than faithfulness in paying debts.

When the Bible speaks of God “justifying” someone, it means that God, the all-holy or “righteous” One, so transforms a person that the individual shares somehow in God’s own holiness, and hence it is really “right” for God to love him or her. In other words, God is not playing games, acting as if we were lovable when we are not.

By saying Joseph was “just,” the Bible means that he was one who was completely open to all that God wanted to do for him. He became holy by opening himself totally to God.

The rest we can easily surmise. Think of the kind of love with which he wooed and won Mary, and the depth of the love they shared during their marriage.

It is no contradiction of Joseph’s manly holiness that he decided to divorce Mary when she was found to be with child. The important words of the Bible are that he planned to do this “quietly” because he was “a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame” (Matthew 1:19).

The just man was simply, joyfully, wholeheartedly obedient to God—in marrying Mary, in naming Jesus, in shepherding the precious pair to Egypt, in bringing them to Nazareth, in the undetermined number of years of quiet faith and courage.

Comment:

The Bible tells us nothing of Joseph in the years after the return to Nazareth except the incident of finding Jesus in the Temple (see Luke 2:41–51). Perhaps this can be taken to mean that God wants us to realize that the holiest family was like every other family, that the circumstances of life for the holiest family were like those of every family, so that when Jesus’ mysterious nature began to appear, people couldn’t believe that he came from such humble beginnings: “Is he not the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother named Mary...?” (Matthew 13:55a). It was almost as indignant as “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” (John 1:46b).

Quote:

“He was chosen by the eternal Father as the trustworthy guardian and protector of his greatest treasures, namely, his divine Son and Mary, Joseph’s wife. He carried out this vocation with complete fidelity until at last God called him, saying: ‘Good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord’” (St. Bernardine of Siena).

[VermiciousKnid]

Here's my St. Joseph story:

When my Polish-born grandmother died a few years back, my mother and all her siblings gathered at her house to go through all her belongings.

They were surprised to find that over the years, Grandma had carefully put masking tape on many of the objects and furnishings in the house, with the name of the person she wished to bequeath them to, sometimes with a short note about why she wished it.

My name appeared on a few things: a box of hand-made lace doilies and tablecloths, the antique chandelier from the dining room, and...

A Holy Picture (that's what she called them) which also hung in the dining room. The note masking-taped to the back said that she wanted me to have it because she had always caught me staring at it as a child. She thought I was entranced with the depiction of the Holy Family -- and indeed I was entranced -- with terror.

You see, the painting was of Mary holding the Christ Child (not scary at all, right?), and St. Joseph coming toward them. In the painting, St. Joseph was carrying a backpack-like bag, and protruding from said bag were grapes and apples -- and an axe.

Now, try to remember that I was a VERY young child, and with my child's imagination, I went right ahead and imagined that for some reason, St. Joseph was going to HURT Mary and Jesus with that axe. It never occurred to me that he was a CARPENTER, who would certainly have had use of such a tool. I never even saw the food that was clearly depicted in the sack.

So here I sit, with Grandma's Holy Picture now gracing a wall in my own home, and I can't help but smile when I think about the fact that the only reason I have it was that I was scared to death of it. I bet Grandma's laughing her butt off up in heaven.

BTW...one of the reasons that picture so perplexed me as a kid was that I have ALWAYS had a great respect for Jesus' earthly father. He was asked to do an almost impossible task, and he did it -- and did it VERY well, and I couldn't reconcile what I KNEW about Joseph and what I THOUGHT I saw in that dang picture.

Anyway, happy St. Joseph's Day (and a happy Patron Day to my dearly departed Grandpa -- Grandma's hubby).

Regards,