Consecration to St. Joseph by Donald H. Calloway MIC

Author:Donald H. Calloway, MIC [Donald H. Calloway, MIC]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: prayer;Mary;Jesus;saint
Published: 2019-12-17T20:47:16+00:00

— St. Joseph Marello

Saint Joseph’s Workshop

Saint Joseph is the Glory of Domestic Life. He loved, educated, nourished, and protected his Son. He gave his entire life in loving service to Jesus and Mary.

On March 19, 1963 (the Solemnity of St. Joseph), St. Josemaría Escrivá gave a homily in honor of St. Joseph that has become very well-known. It is titled, “In Joseph’s Workshop.”

In the homily, St. Josemaría describes the wonderful relationship that St.

Joseph and Jesus had as father and son. Below is a section of the homily.

Joseph, caring for the child as he had been commanded, made Jesus a craftsman, transmitting his own professional skill to him. So the neighbors of Nazareth will call Jesus both faber and fabri filius: the craftsman and the son of the craftsman (see Mk 6:3; Mt 13:55). Jesus worked in Joseph’s workshop and by Joseph’s side. What must Joseph have been, how grace must have worked through him, that he should be able to fulfill this task of the human upbringing of the Son of God!

For Jesus must have resembled Joseph: in his way of working, in the features of his character, in his way of speaking. Jesus’ realism, his eye for detail, the way he sat at table and broke bread, his preference for using everyday situations to give doctrine

— all this reflects his childhood and the influence of Joseph.

It’s not possible to ignore this sublime mystery: Jesus who is man, who speaks with the accent of a particular district of Israel, who resembles a carpenter called Joseph, is the Son of God. And who can teach God anything? But he is also truly man and lives a normal life: first, as a child, then as a boy helping in Joseph’s workshop, finally as a grown man in the prime of life. “Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and grace before God and men” (Lk 2:52).

In human life, Joseph was Jesus’ master in their daily contact, full of refined affection, glad to deny himself to take better care of Jesus. Isn’t that reason enough for us to consider this just man, this holy patriarch, in whom the faith of the old covenant bears fruit, as a master of the interior life? Interior life is nothing but continual and direct conversation with Christ, so as to become one with him. And Joseph can tell us many things about Jesus. Therefore, never neglect devotion to him — Ite ad Ioseph: “Go to Joseph” — as Christian tradition puts it in the words of the Old Testament.

As master of the interior life, a worker deeply involved in his job, God’s servant in continual contact with Jesus: that is Joseph. Ite ad Ioseph. With St. Joseph, the Christian learns what it means to belong to God and fully to assume one’s place among men, sanctifying the world. Get to know Joseph and you will find Jesus.

Talk to Joseph and you will find Mary, who always sheds peace about her in that attractive workshop in Nazareth.1

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