I encourage you to make, with me, a 33-day preparation for consecration to St. Joseph, which will take place on May 1st (the feast of St. Joseph the Worker). I’m using Fr. Donald Calloway’s fine book Consecration to St. Joseph. Each day’s reading takes about seven or eight minutes, and I render full credit for these thoughts, respecting copyright laws, to Fr. Donald H. Calloway, author of the book.
Day Five
“Holiness,” Mother Teresa would say, “is not a luxury for the few. It is a simple duty for everyone.” We can be holy. We can flourish like a riot of bright wildflowers adorning a sunny mountain meadow. We can walk the full stretch of natural and supernatural paths that God lays out for us. But only by “an active interior life,” as Fr. Calloway says of St. Joseph today. Our hidden, supernatural lives must power and direct our exterior, natural lives. St. Joseph was the most hidden man alive—not a recorded word of his in the Bible, his birth and his death unknown, and the Church herself paid almost no attention to him for 1800 years. And yet, this simple layman was holier than any bishop or pope, holiner than any other saint after his beautiful wife. He became this kind of man because he prayed: because he maintained an intense, ordered, consistent prayer life. You and I will blossom in God's garden to the extent that we are faithful to silence and spoken prayer: the Holy Mass, the Bible, the rosary, etc. We will be good, and do good, to the degree that we spend time with The Good.
Day Five
“Holiness,” Mother Teresa would say, “is not a luxury for the few. It is a simple duty for everyone.” We can be holy. We can flourish like a riot of bright wildflowers adorning a sunny mountain meadow. We can walk the full stretch of natural and supernatural paths that God lays out for us. But only by “an active interior life,” as Fr. Calloway says of St. Joseph today. Our hidden, supernatural lives must power and direct our exterior, natural lives. St. Joseph was the most hidden man alive—not a recorded word of his in the Bible, his birth and his death unknown, and the Church herself paid almost no attention to him for 1800 years. And yet, this simple layman was holier than any bishop or pope, holiner than any other saint after his beautiful wife. He became this kind of man because he prayed: because he maintained an intense, ordered, consistent prayer life. You and I will blossom in God's garden to the extent that we are faithful to silence and spoken prayer: the Holy Mass, the Bible, the rosary, etc. We will be good, and do good, to the degree that we spend time with The Good.
RSS Feed