Meditation of the Day

Saint Joseph

 

 

 

 

 

 

We see in Saint Joseph a totally purified soul, a soul in which sin has lost its power. St. Augustine, while asserting that no one is ever free from sin in this life and that even the saints must pray "Forgive us our sins," recognized that God could, if He so desired, by way of exception and special privilege, completely take away the corruption that causes a man to sin and array him with incorruptibility in this life so that he might see God everywhere present, just as the saints in Heaven see Him but without a veil." Surely this marvelous privilege was granted to Saint Joseph who was called to virginity in marriage and who had the Son of God always before his eyes. Was he not, as St. Augustine says, completely taken up with unceasing contemplation of his God? How could he sin? In the holy house of Nazareth, there was no place for sin.

 

O Joseph, we catch a glimpse of your holiness in its dazzling mystery - Mary can be yours, but no less God's for all that. Furthermore, being yours, she belongs to God even more than before, and it is when she became yours that the great mystery for which she was created was accomplished in her.

 

How admirable God's arrangement! How it brought to light Saint Joseph's extraordinary purity of soul, he who did keep the love of the creature for himself but returned everything to God!

 

What a lesson you teach us, O great Saint! You wanted nothing which is not of God and for God. In Mary, you experienced only God, as Mary experienced only God in you. Obtain for us, great Saint, the grace to be able to imitate such purity of heart.