Our Daily Love

 

March 19, 2024

Hi!  How is each and every one?  Today is the Solemnity of St. Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The whole Church is celebrating this occasion and turning to St. Joseph, Ite ad Ioseph, honoring him and asking him for whatever concerns each one has.

The Bible pays Joseph the highest compliment: he was a “just” man. The quality meant a lot more than faithfulness in paying debts. 

 When the Bible speaks of God “justifying” someone, it means that God, the all-holy or “righteous” One, so transforms a person that the individual shares somehow in God’s own holiness, and hence it is really “right” for God to love him or her. In other words, God is not playing games, acting as if we were lovable when we are not. 

 

By saying Joseph was “just,” the Bible means that he was one who was completely open to all that God wanted to do for him. He became holy by opening himself totally to God. 

The rest we can easily surmise. Think of the kind of love with which he wooed and won Mary, and the depth of the love they shared during their marriage. 

 It is no contradiction of Joseph’s manly holiness that he decided to divorce Mary when she was found to be with child. The important words of the Bible are that he planned to do this “quietly” because he was “a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame” (Matthew 1:19). 

The just man was simply, joyfully, wholeheartedly obedient to God - in marrying Mary, in naming Jesus, in shepherding the precious pair to Egypt, in bringing them to Nazareth, in the undetermined number of years of quiet faith and courage.

 The Bible tells us nothing of Joseph in the years after the return to Nazareth except the incident of finding Jesus in the Temple (see Luke 2:41–51). Perhaps this can be taken to mean that God wants us to realize that the holiest family was like every other family, that the circumstances of life for the holiest family were like those of every family, so that when Jesus’ mysterious nature began to appear, people couldn’t believe that he came from such humble beginnings: “Is he not the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother named Mary...?” (Matthew 13:55a). It was almost as indignant as “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” (John 1:46b).

 Quote:

“He was chosen by the eternal Father as the trustworthy guardian and protector of his greatest treasures, namely, his divine Son and Mary, Joseph’s wife. He carried out this vocation with complete fidelity until at last God called him, saying: ‘Good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord’” (St Bernardine of Siena).

 

What a beautiful day for this post to start a series on the ‘symphony’ of love of St Paul to the Corinthians (1 Cor 13: 4-7) from Pope Francis’s Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, Chapter 4, nos. 89-119. 

The word “love”, however, is commonly used and often misused (Cf. Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est (25 December 2005), 2: AAS 98 (2006), 218).

Our Daily Love (nos. 90-92)

90. In a lyrical passage of Saint Paul, we see some of the features of true love: “Love is patient, love is kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor 13:4-7).

Love is experienced and nurtured in the daily life of couples and their children. It is helpful to think more deeply about the meaning of this Pauline text and its relevance for the concrete situation of every family.

Love is patient    

91. The first word used is makrothyméi. This does not simply have to do with “enduring all things”, because we find that idea expressed at the end of the seventh verse. Its meaning is clarified by the Greek translation of the Old Testament, where we read that God is “slow to anger” (Ex 34:6; Num 14:18). It refers, then, to the quality of one who does not act on impulse and avoids giving offense. We find this quality in the God of the Covenant, who calls us to imitate him also within the life of the family. Saint Paul’s texts using this word need to be read in the light of the Book of Wisdom (cf. 11:23; 12:2, 15-18), which extols God’s restraint, as leaving open the possibility of repentance, yet insists on his power, as revealed in his acts of mercy. God’s “patience”, shown in his mercy towards sinners, is a sign of his real power.

Aleteia

92. Being patient does not mean letting ourselves be constantly mistreated, tolerating physical aggression or allowing other people to use us. We encounter problems whenever we think that relationships or people ought to be perfect, or when we put ourselves at the center and expect things to turn out our way. Then everything makes us impatient, everything makes us react aggressively. Unless we cultivate patience, we will always find excuses for responding angrily. We will end up incapable of living together, antisocial, unable to control our impulses, and our families will become battlegrounds. That is why the word of God tells us: “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice” (Eph 4:31). Patience takes root when I recognize that other people also have a right to live in this world, just as they are. It does not matter if they hold me back, if they unsettle my plans, or annoy me by the way they act or think, or if they are not everything I want them to be. Love always has an aspect of deep compassion that leads to accepting the other person as part of this world, even when he or she acts differently than I would like.

Over and above all those considerations is the opportunity being offered to each one of us to choose virtue when temptations face us as advised by Pope Francis recently to his audience.

Navarre Bible comments (1 Cor 13:4-7:  In his listing of the qualities of charity, St. Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, begins with two general features—patience and kindness—which the Bible attributes to God.  Both of these lead on to thirteen particular ways in which love expresses itself.

Patience is a quality often praised in the Bible:  in the Psalms God is said to be slow to anger (Ps 145:8); patience means great serenity in the face of injury; kindness has to do with being inclined to do good to others, St. Thomas Aquinas explains this by starting with the etymology of the word:  “Kindness [benignitas, benignity] is like good fuel [bona igneitas]: just as fire causes solid substances to become liquid and start to melt, charity sees to it that a person does not keep his things for himself but distributes them to others” (Commentary on 1 Cor, ad hoc.).  Since to charity are attributed qualities which in the first instance apply to God, we can see the excellence of this virtue:  “Charity towards our neighbor is an expression of our love of God.  Accordingly, when we strive to grow in this virtue, we cannot fix any limits to our growth.  The only possible measure for the love of God is to love without measure: on the one hand, because we will never be able to thank him enough for what he has done for us; and on the other, because this is exactly what God’s own love for us, his creatures, is like: it overflows without calculation or limit” (Bl. J. Escriva, Friends of God, 232).

See how many virtues that render us powerful we can choose from when you and I love?  There is generosity, gratitude, magnanimity, serenity, goodness, self-forgetfulness, unlimited abundance.  Once again you and I need to reflect and meditate on the above thoughts, ideas, virtues and situations in the silence of our hearts when you and I spend daily moments of quiet prayer and conversation with God who is absolute Love.

See you in the next post, “May tomorrow be a perfect day; may you find love and laughter along the way; may God keep you in his tender care; ‘til He brings us together again.”

Affectionately,                    

Guadalupinky