As we are celebrating the Solemnity of
St Joseph and Pauline Brotherhood day it befitting for us to reflect on the
spirituality of this great saint and patron of our Pauline family.
Whenever we talk about or reflect about
St Joseph what come to our mind are his simplicity, humility, detachment and
love for the holy family of Nazareth.
With the little knowledge about St
Joseph that we have from the Bible, we can talk volumes about St Joseph as we
see him a Saint who not only thought of serving Mary and Jesus, with acts of
selfless love but also teaching Jesus the Word Incarnate, to work with wood
till he embraced the wood of the Cross which became the altar of His Sacrifice.
**Devotion to St. Joseph became popular
from the 12th century onward and in the 15th Century the feast of St. Joseph
began to be celebrated on March 19 every year as Solemnity.
St.
Joseph is invoked as patron for many causes. He is the patron of the Universal
Church. He is the patron of the dying because Jesus and Mary were at his
death-bed. He is also the patron of fathers, of carpenters, and of social
justice.
Today’s Gospel text throws a little more
light on St Joseph as a patron of social justice. It says that Mary and Joseph were engaged,
and legally considered husband and wife.
A misunderstanding of the pregnancy of
Mary tortures the mind of St Joseph which could lead him to dissolve their
union by divorce or death.
As a law-abiding Jew, Joseph was suppose
to keep the Law of Moses intact and get the title of righteous or just man by
exposing Mary to public disgrace but Joseph has gone against the law and
disobeyed the law of Moses. Social Justice demands spirit of the law and not
letter of the law.
Joseph was righteous or just because of
his charitable, loving and selfless act to Mary by not going by the letter of
the law. He
loved Mary above himself and his behavior was called "just" in the
Scriptures as a result of his selfless love.
He has no disordered attachments to the things or titles of this world.
This incident invites us to reflect on,
two significant points. First, many of us are often caught in the dilemma of
doing the right thing which might not always be the loving thing.
If we follow only the letter of the law,
we may be doing the right thing but not the most loving thing.
However, if we focus every time on the
most loving thing, like Joseph, it is definitely also the right thing. Though
Joseph could have done the right thing of executing the law and put Mary to
shame publicly, he decides to go beyond the letter of the law and do the loving
thing, which in his case was also the right thing.
Today’s Gospel passage also throws light
on God’s merciful love for humankind. It shows us who our God is. Our God
is God with us. Our God is one who always takes the initiative, who always
invites, and who always wants all of us to draw closer to him and to each other
in loving and sharing as brothers of one family.
This God does not come in power, might,
and glory, but as a helpless child in humility and simplicity. As a child, God
is vulnerable. He is fully human and in his humanity, is subject to all the
limitations that humanity imposes on us. Yet, he will do even that, if only we
respond to the unconditional love that he shows.**
These two significant
points of charity and humility drawn from the noble quality of detachment, form
the spirituality of St Joseph and the spirituality of brotherhood.
In the past we were frequently
instructed that we were being crucified with Christ with the three nails of
evangelical counsels. Today we must think of replacing obedience with humility;
poverty with detachment and chastity with charity.
Therefore the spirituality of St Joseph
and brotherhood calls forth a total disfiguration of ourselves with the three
nails of humility, detachment and charity. This disfiguration will lead us to
transfiguration and finally configuration with Christ.
Our founder wants that we all of us
imitate St Joseph and become brothers to one another; be disfigured on the
cross of our Religious Life with these three nails of humility, detachment and
charity.
It calls forth an integrated
spirituality of Brotherhood. Our brotherhood is not something that we are
having but it is something that we are
being. We have to ascent to the Divine Mount of Brotherhood step by step. From
universal brotherhood to human brotherhood; from human brotherhood to Christian
brotherhood; from Christian brotherhood to Religious brotherhood and from
Religious brotherhood to Pauline Brotherhood.
In other words we have to begin our
brotherhood by respecting and loving the creation of God and then move on to
ascend to this mount by breaking ourselves for the other keeping in mind that
we become authentically human in the presence of the other. We have to consider
the other who is sitting next to us is not a threat but a source of wealth as
he is a brother a symbol of God’s love for us with whom we share our thoughts,
feelings and emotions and grow towards human brotherhood.
In this process of accenting from human
brotherhood towards the mount of Christian
brotherhood we encounter certain blocks. The inordinate desires “to be more”
and to “have more”. are being crept into our Christian brotherhood of loving
others as Jesus has loved us. The fulfillment of one desire becomes the beginning of another leading us to total
attachment wearing out our souls. As a consequence of this the other who is
sitting next to me may become a hell for me and his presence becomes a source
of discomfort for me.
Christian Brotherhood transcends the
desire to have more and leads us to be brothers of Jesus Christ. To be the
brothers of Jesus Christ we need to go through disfiguration of ourselves by
living out our life in humility, charity and detachment and reach the final
stage of Religious and Pauline brotherhood and experience the transfiguration
of Christ in our life.
**Extract from Errol sj
**Extract from Errol sj
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