Saint Joseph

May is the month traditionally dedicated to Mary, Mother of Jesus, and on the first day of this month the Church invites us to look at Joseph, her husband. Yet instead of focusing on Joseph's working example, let us listen this time to a possible description of the confidential sharing of his bride about what kind of person was Joseph, how they met and got engaged, and how was their relationship.

Mary speaks:
There was my natural life and my supernatural life. I lived as a daughter of Israel, attending the synagogue, learning the Jewish scriptures and fulfilling my role. No one would have singled me out. I dressed and ate as others. I participated in family life and in the community life at Nazareth.
The Three Divine Persons
Yet, within me, my soul was absorbed by this light that revealed God. I understood God as taught by the scriptures, that He was one and there was no other. But my supernatural light brought me to understand that within this oneness there were three perfect Persons, all eternal and almighty. I did not share this with others, because I could not fully describe my experiences.
Meeting Joseph
Then, I met Joseph. He was kind and thoughtful. He, too, was holy and devout. Holiness joined us together. My soul rejoiced in his presence and I shared with him some beginning revelations, those that I could put into words. He always responded and I could see that my words gave nourishment to his soul. So, we spoke often. Our Jewish faith gave us many common themes. He was a just man, always living according to the Mosaic Law.
I could not explain my attraction to him. This attraction itself was a mystery and somehow, it shared in the mystery of God and the three Persons. The more I was absorbed in God in heaven, the more I felt attracted to Joseph on earth. God, himself, had singled him out and, my love for Joseph in no way violated my love for God. The two went together in a mystery that I could not understand but which was so evident to me.
The Proposal to Marry
Then came a special moment. I can never forget it. Joseph was older than I and he had never thought of marrying again. However, as we shared our mutual love for God, we both felt an attraction which we knew was there but we never spoke about. Then, one day, under a divine inspiration, Joseph asked me to be his wife. At this point, I had to tell him what God was doing in my soul. I told him that I felt absorbed by God and, in these great gifts I had given myself totally to God, that I had consecrated myself in a way that no daughter of Abraham would even think of doing. I had told God that I would be his perpetual virgin. This was the first gift. I also explained to Joseph that my attraction for him and his attraction for me was part of my divine experiences, that as I was absorbed into God, my heart was also moved closer to Joseph. So, I placed this great mystery before him in the only words I knew. He, somehow, understood. Yet, both of us did not know the outcome. I knew he was a just man and would ponder the situation.
Joseph’s Decision
Soon, however, he returned and said that, through me, God had touched his own heart and he, too, felt drawn into this holy calling. He would share in my virginal consecration. Again, he asked me to be his wife, with the understanding that he would always love me and protect me as a husband but would never ask me for the rights that a husband has regarding his wife.
We both knew that God had consummated a great gift. We were more mutually joined in our hearts than any other couple who had promised to marry each other. We were betrothed and we told everyone. No one else knew the great mystery. In the eyes of all, we were just like any other betrothed couple, waiting for the day when Joseph would tell my parents that he wanted to take me into his home. This would be the final and concluding moment.
In my own heart, my heavenly call and my earthly call had come together. This question was now answered. When I consecrated my virginity to God, I did not know how this could ever be fulfilled in my Jewish culture which made no such provision. God, in whom I had trusted, had everything prepared and I rejoiced in God my Savior.

www.locutions.org/2012/03/joseph-my-husband/

The greatest of God's interventions in our world since the Big Bang of Creation, which was the Incarnation of the Word, happened in the hiddenness of the most common and ordinary of places and human stories: youth, love, decisions, doubts, choices, fidelity, obedience, paradox, freedom, risk taking ... Just a mix that may be found in any of our lives ... if we too choose to live and walk in God's Presence. God has a magnificent plan for each one of us also. 

May Saint Joseph intercede for us today, together with Mary, his most Holy Spouse, so that we too may open our freedom to the breath of the Spirit in the silence of our heart. And may we work out with God, through prayer, the direction we are to take in every fork, small or big, of our life journey.

Dedication of Our Inner Temple

Today we have this beautiful reading at Mass from the First book of Maccabees (4:36-37,52-59)

Judas, who was called Maccabeus, took command of the army in place of his father, Mattathias, and he defeated the army of King Antiochus which was commanded by Lysias. Then Judas en his brothers said, “See, our enemies are crushed; let us go up to cleanse the sanctuary and dedicate it.” So all the army assembled and went up to Mount Zion.

Early in the morning on the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month, which is the month of Chislev, in the one hundred forty-eighth year, they rose and offered sacrifice, as the law directs, on the new altar of burnt offering that they had built. At the very season and on the very day that the Gentiles had profaned it, it was dedicated with songs and harps and lutes and cymbals. All the people fell on their faces and worshipped and blessed heaven, who had prospered them.

So they celebrated the dedication of the altar for eight days, and joyfully offered burn offerings ... There was very great joy among the people, and the disgrace brought by the Gentiles was removed.

Then Judas and his brothers and all the assembly of Israel determined that every year at that season the days of dedication of the altar should be observed with joy and gladness for eight days, beginning with the twenty-fifth day of the month of Chislev.)

We have here a great account of rebirth and renewal: the Israelites had been reduced to slavery, their temple desecrated, and their identity lost as well as their self esteem. But starting from the revolt of a small portion of their people they have come far enough to be able to recognize the need and the possibility of restoring and cleansing the sanctuary, and they are now united to dedicate/consecrate it anew. The result is an explosion of JOY, and the realization on an astonishing fact: the disgrace brought by the Gentiles was removed.

It seems to me that this is a beautiful metaphor for our own soul and its ups and downs. It is a magnificent temple originally dedicated to God but often reduced to slavery when turned away from God.

When God is not worshiped, there is always another god taking over the worship. If God is not the center of our lives, I (we) become the center, and the result is selfishness, competition, violence, sadness... you name it, because there is no room in the universe for multiple gods, we inhabit a One God universe.

Thus if my life is not centered in God, the best thing I can do is to begin a personal revolution, like the Maccabees, against the tyrant who is ruling my life for its own benefit and against my greater well-being and good, against my own self-centered egotism.

I don't have to wait, like the Maccabees, until all my inner demons are crushed to re-dedicate my personal temple to the Holy Spirit again. As Catholics we have already a victorious Savior who has made available for us the way to our original greatness. We only have to present ourselves with our plea before the Throne of Mercy -the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Then we can experience the deep Joy of being reconciled with our deepest Center, of having the legitimate Leader who gives us identity and direction clearly before our sight so that we can not only follow Him but become one with Him.

No matter how hard we try to create unity among peoples and nations, the only way to true unity is becoming each one united to/with God, then we automatically become one with each other. Isn't that what heaven is about already on earth?


I think it's important to be aware that when the disgrace is removed -as the text shows us- the new temple is even more magnificent than the old one, and the people recognize themselves to be so much more privileged than before they lost their freedom and their temple.

Ultimately our journey on earth is about allowing the Spirit of Christ to fully take over our life in the complete consecration of utter surrender to God. This is the condition in Heaven, these are the saints -we were born to become saints, no less. And we will not be ready to join them until we have the same dedication of our inner temple to God that they had. There are not more or less saintly saints in Heaven, each and everyone of them is a saint because they have given their ALL to God -to the God who gives himself totally to us.

If God is not the Center of the whole of our life, then we may need to take a look at what are we using the journey for, because everything else will be left behind. We may be wasting our time and our life.

And also, once we have allow God to take over the whole of our being and life, our mistakes, errors and infidelities will mean absolutely nothing, as if they never were except, perhaps, that thanks to them and in order to overcome them we engaged ourselves in the challenging revolution of a serious Journey to our final destination.

Living Icons of Jesus through The Holy Spirit

During these days of prayer for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon our world and our lives, the Liturgy presents us, once again, with the beautiful reading of St. Basil the Great on the Holy Spirit.
I have commented before (here) some parts of this text but it is well worth reading and re-reading it. This is a great hymn and a consoling prayer that can give us theme for a quiet, contemplative time in the secret of our inner room.
I'm copying the text from the Liturgy of the Hours:

   

The Work of the Holy Spirit

The titles given to the Holy Spirit must surely stir the soul of anyone who hears them, and make him realise that they speak of nothing less than the supreme Being.

Is he not called:

            the Spirit of God,

               the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father,

                  the steadfast Spirit,

                     the guiding Spirit?

But his principal and most personal title is the Holy Spirit.

To the Spirit all creatures turn in their need for sanctification;

all living things seek him according to their ability.

His breath empowers each to achieve its own natural end.

The Spirit is the source of holiness, a spiritual light, and he offers his own light to every mind to help it in its search for truth.

By nature the Spirit is beyond the reach of our mind, but we can know him by his goodness.

The power of the Spirit fills the whole universe, but he gives himself only to those who are worthy, acting in each according to the measure of his faith.

Simple in himself, the Spirit is manifold in his mighty works.

The whole of his being is present to each individual; the whole of his being is present everywhere.

Though shared in by many, he remains unchanged; his self giving is no loss to himself.

Like the sunshine, which permeates all the atmosphere, spreading over land and sea, and yet is enjoyed by each person as though it were for him alone, so the Spirit pours forth his grace in full measure, sufficient for all, and yet is present as though exclusively to everyone who can receive him.

To all creatures that share in him he gives a delight limited only by their own nature, not by his ability to give.

The Spirit raises our hearts to heaven, guides the steps of the weak, and brings to perfection those who are making progress.

He enlightens those who have been cleansed from every stain of sin and makes them spiritual by communion with himself.

As clear, transparent substances become very bright when sunlight falls on them and shine with a new radiance, so also souls in whom the Spirit shines become spiritual themselves and a source of grace for others.

From the Spirit comes

     foreknowledge of the future,

       understanding of the mysteries of faith,

         insight into the hidden meaning of Scripture,

           and other special gifts.

Through the Spirit we become citizens of heaven, we enter into eternal happiness, and abide in God.

Through the Spirit we acquire a likeness to God; indeed, we attain what is beyond our most sublime aspirations – we become God.

From the treatise On the Holy Spirit by Saint Basil the Great, bishop

The last paragraph makes a very bold statement on our destiny and our identity as human beings. We are created with the image and likeness of God in us (Gen 1:26) like a seed that we need to nurture and allow to grow over time in order to bring it to fruition. 

In Jesus the Christ we have the perfectly accomplished human image of God. Jesus the Way, the Truth, and the Life is One with God, and like Him, we too are called not only to union but to oneness with God through identification and participation in Christ.

Thus our earthly journey is about becoming like Christ, becoming Christ. We are presented in the Gospels with the Model we need to imitate in our lives with our free decision to follow Him every day. But our actions, our efforts are not enough to make us like Him. For this to happen a real transformation has to take place. We call it holiness, which is a divinization not only of our actions but also of our faculties, of our mind and our psyche, of our feelings and desires. 

Jesus fulfills his promise not to leave us orphans (Jn 14:18) by becoming, through the workings of His Spirit, the yeast of our transformation that sculpts in us his own likeness and makes of us his Living Memories, his Living Icons when and where we surrender and entrust the whole of our being to the Divine Artist who is recreating in us the human face of God.

Come Spirit of Jesus!

The Ascension of The Lord

In Canada we are celebrating this Sunday the beautiful feast of the completion of Jesus' journey on earth even beyond the Resurrection, that is the Ascension, Jesus' return to the Father, and the end of the post resurrection "stage of formation" for the Apostles.

Luke describes for us the scene in Acts 1 where Jesus is giving them final instructions:

Do not leave Jerusalem but wait there for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

This sounds promising and exciting to the disciples: finally something is going to happen. They are used to hearing Jesus talk of the Father and all, so this is familiar territory, but they can also feel in the air that there is like a feeling of expectation, of real power about to burst into something big.

In this special moment with Jesus we have the last recorded words addressed to Jesus by the disciples. They ask Him:

Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel? 

What a revealing question! They have been with Jesus for three years and they still don't have a clue of what is Jesus talking about. They heard but didn't get it. They saw Jesus dead (from the distance) and risen, but still don't get it. It's like they are living in parallel worlds, no matter how long they journey they never meet. The apostles are still thinking of an earthly kingdom where they will have political power.

I think that this is the need that Jesus is addressing in the Ascension: as far as the disciples see Him "there", with the eyes of their bodies, they won't get what  the whole Jesus' thing is about. There has to be a shift in their consciousness, a huge one, and that Jesus will accomplish through the Power of God at work within, the gentle, humble, invisible Holy Spirit on Pentecost day.

They certainly needed it. But not only them. Doesn't this also sound like our communities and our churches today? How many of us today believe that we are mature disciples of Jesus and yet we live out of a consciousness which is a parallel world with Jesus' and the Gospel and closer to that of the apostles in this passage? What are our expectations and desires? What do we labor for with our life? We have probably received the sacrament of confirmation, but have we also entered, with Mary, the womb of prayer that will give birth to the Spirit in our life?

In yesterday's readings we heard (John 16:23-28)

I came from the Father and have come into the world; 

again, I am leaving the world and am going to the Father.

This is an overview of Jesus' journey, and it's also an overview of our own personal journey as Jesus has shown us with His life. We come from God, we are in the world but not of the world -we belong with God, and we journey back to God. And yet we live and judge and talk and feel as if we come from this earth, belong in this earth, and will remain here forever and ever. This is how we approach events and decisions both personally and socially. We manage to create and live in a parallel world which is not Jesus' or the Kingdom He came to bring.

This is why we need so badly an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon each one of us individually, upon the Church, and upon the world. We need to awaken to the consciousness of our real purpose and destiny in God. We have limited time and endless opportunities. God is with us in this journey but we need to feel the need for a change of heart and mind, and open ourselves to the groaning of the Spirit within always yearning to fill us with the humble power of the Kingdom.

During this week before Pentecost, let us unite in prayer for the coming of the Holy Spirit upon each one of us, our families and communities, the Church, and our world.

Come Holy Spirit! 

The Spirit of Truth

As Jesus' post Resurrection departure approaches we can sense in the liturgical texts that the focus of attention is slowly shifting -or rather expanding- towards the fulfillment of Jesus promise, the coming of the Spirit.

"If you love me, 

you will keep my commandments.

And I will ask the Father,

and He will give you another Advocate, 

to be with you forever.

This is the Spirit of Truth, 

whom the world cannot receive,

because it neither sees Him nor knows Him.

You know Him, because He abides with you,

and He will be with you." 

(John 14: 15-17)

I don't know how we have managed to make of our Faith a matter of beliefs. Jesus, obviously, presented us with a way of life: "if you love me you will keep my commandments". It is not about having the concepts right. It's about copying the attitudes, the life, the style, the values of Him who said,

I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life

It is our way of life what will make of us dwellers of the Spirit of Truth -the Spirit of Jesus, and Living Memories, Icons of Christ. 

 TRUTH is not a thing we possess, but a person by whom we must 

allow ourselves to be possessed   

Dialogue And Proclamation 19/V/1991-#49

This Spirit of Truth the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. This is the world we live in, so full of confusion, of lies, of manipulation. But it is not a Creed what makes us to be in the "right" track, rather it is a deep conversion of heart that allows Jesus to take over our lives and live in us. Then He will abide in us and be with us, and we will know the Truth.

"The one who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me;

and the one who loves me will be loved by my Father,

and I will love them and reveal myself to them."

(John 14: 21)

  Let us pray in earnest for our personal conversion and for the gift of this revelation of the Spirit of Jesus to us, to the Church, and to the world:

               Breathe on me, Breath of God,

               Fill me with life anew,

               That I may love the things You love,

               And do what You would do.

               Breathe on me, Breath of God,

               Until my heart is pure,

               Until with You I have one will,

               To live and to endure.

               Breathe on me, Breath of God,

               My soul with grace refine,

               Until this earthly part of me

               Glows with Your fire divine.

               Breathe on me, Breath of God,

               So shall I never die,

               But live with You the perfect life

               In Your eternity.

                              Amen.          (Liturgy of the Hours -Edwin Hatch -Public Domain)

The Work of the Holy Spirit

As we pray for the coming of the Spirit during this time of expectation, the Liturgy of the Hours sets for us the tone. The Office of Readings in particular offers us some pearls of our faith in the words of the Fathers of the Church.


We read from the treatise On the Holy Spirit by Saint Basil the Great: "The Spirit is the source of holiness, a spiritual light, ... The power of the Spirit fills the whole universe ... Simple in himself [or herself], the Spirit is manifold in his mighty works. The whole of his being is present to each individual; the whole of his being is present everywhere ... Like the sunshine, which permeates all the atmosphere, spreading over land and sea, and yet is enjoyed by each person as though it were for him alone, so the Spirit pours forth his grace in full measure, sufficient for all, and yet is present as though exclusively to everyone who can receive him. To all creatures that share in him he gives a delight limited only by their own nature, not by his ability to give. 
The Spirit raises our hearts to heaven, guides the steps of the weak, and brings to perfection those who are making progress."


The Spirit of God is God's very self in action, always "at work" for us, with us, in us. Always available, always present, always inviting, always seducing, and always unique in expression to each person, granting Gifts for the good of all. We call them charisms:
"From the Spirit comes foreknowledge of the future, understanding of the mysteries of faith, insight into the hidden meaning of Scripture, and other special gifts."


These individual expressions of the Spirit in everyone of us are meant to help us in our journey. But what is the direction, the goal of that movement? Where are we going that we need the Spirit? What is it all about? What is the ultimate seduction of the Spirit? 


St. Basil concludes: "Through the Spirit we acquire a likeness to God; indeed, we attain what is beyond our most sublime aspirations -we become God."


We don't hear this kind of expression in our Sunday homilies and yet this "theosis" or "deification", our transformation through the journey of life, was clearly expressed by the  contemplative theologians, the Fathers and Mothers of the early Church. They wrote from their own experience, which means that this is not just the talk on "the other side" of eternity, this is about here and now, our journey on planet Earth, today.


St. Paul had already experienced and written about this: "Life, to me, is Christ" (Phil 1,21).  "It is no longer I who lives but Christ lives in me" (Ga 2,20)


M. Maria Celeste Crostarosa, a Neapolitan mystic of the XVIII century and the instrument of God for the foundation of the religious Institute of the Most Holy Redeemer with St. Alphonsus Liguori -Redemptorist missionaries and Redemptoristine nuns- writes extensively and repeatedly about the transformation of the human person into Christ, this divinization. 
In her Degrees of Prayer  (12th Degree) she describes the transformation of the person in the spiritual journey as a new creation, and makes a parallel with the Creation passage in Genesis. When she comes to the Seventh Day she writes:


"Adam being created, he relaxed and slept. That's when the Lord rested also -on the seventh day. Created-man found rest in the Divinity and the Divinity found it in Adam. Having created man for His own rest and dwelling-place, He delighted in the original model, His Son, and rested. Our soul has God for its delight and rest when she is created all over again in her original innocence.
After all these works of creation are made all over again the soul is given the likeness of the Son of God. She is given an original innocence and divine simplicity -just as man was made in the beginning. Then God rests in the soul and she sleeps and rests in God's delight."


After two more pages describing this condition of the person, M. Maria Celeste continues:
"Here it is fulfilled at last the longing man had when, in the earthly Paradise, the hellish serpent persuaded him to eat the fruit from the tree forbidden by the Lord. [The serpent said that] By eating it he would become like God. 
Just what he longed for has happened. The Lord wanted this longing of man to be fulfilled but, for man's happiness, in a different way from what the enemy had suggested.
That tree of Paradise, forbidden to Adam, was a figure of the Word of God made man, and whoever dared eating from it would die. That is, for those who eat it and die it was indicating the Jews because they would eat His flesh through envy and kill Him. 
But this fruit of life, through His death, should enliven us with eternal life. It should also become for all the chosen souls the fruit and food of life in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar, where -in a real, true, and admirable way- when we ate from it, we would be transformed into the living God. 


This is the work "par excellence" of the Holy Spirit, our transformation into Christ already on this side of eternity. This is the contemplative journey. This is our destiny. 
Our daily life becomes the womb of transformation when we invite and follow the lead of the Spirit as modeled for us by so many brothers and sisters who, through the centuries, have become living memories of Christ on earth.