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A couple weeks ago, I was asked to give a talk about St. Joseph, and I thought that I had nothing to say. In fact, less then nothing.
Then last week I reacted violently to our after-lunch spiritual reading. It was from a book on St. Joseph, whose author was telling us that St. Joseph was the gold standard of the saints and that Mary was, of course, platinum.
Joseph, gold; the apostles, silver; the doctors of the church, bronze; and the rest of the saints, plaster. And I was dust!
That did not work for me. In fact, it did the opposite, putting me off all the saints, let alone St. Joseph.
I need a real person, a man who knows what I am going through.
***
What good is he to me if he did not suffer and struggle as I do?
If he did not get frustrated or disappointed with unseen or unexpected defects in the materials he was working with—
What good is he to me?
If he did not experience jealousy or rejection when his betrothed came to him pregnant—
What good is he to me?
If he did not experience weariness and become footsore in his travels—
What good is he to me?
If he did not experience anger, frustration or a feeling of incompetence when there was no room for them in Bethlehem—
What good is he to me?
If he did not experience powerlessness and fear when he was told in a dream to flee to Egypt because the king was out to kill the Child—
What good is he to me?
If he did not encounter hostility, hunger and bias as a stranger in a strange land—
What good is he to me?
If he did not find it difficult to re-establish himself as a worker in Nazareth regaining a reputation as a good craftsmen—
What good is he to me?
If he did not question his ability as a father or his competence to care for a son when Jesus was lost for three days—
What good is he to me?
If he did not experience loneliness and struggle with chastity—
What good is he to me?
If he did not wonder at the gift of the angel’s visits and question why he was so signalled out for such graces—
What good is he to me?
If he was not awed and humbled by the love and care he received from Mary and Jesus—
What good is he to me?
If he was not stretched day-by-day to return that love and to love others he encountered who were not so loving—
What good is he to me?
***
For these are the things that I rely on him to help me with on a day-to-day basis.
How good he has been to me!
