About a year ago I decided to foster my devotion to Saint Joseph a bit more. I thought it fitting since he's the patron my home diocese, Baton Rouge, and the spouse of the Blessed Mother. So I went out and bought a book with reflections on his life taken from private revelations. One of the things that the author spoke about immediately was the humility of Joseph and the humble but vital role he played in our own story of salvation by caring for Mary during her pregnancy, providing for the infant Christ, and raising the Son of God as his own son. And with all of that he is mentioned only a few times in the whole of the scriptures. And yet it is rather fitting that he, like the Blessed Mother, would prefer to be in the background with the Lord in the spotlight. I began to pray with this aspect of the foster-father of Christ and went to leave the chapel when I looked up and noticed that statue of St. Joseph in the back our of chapel. It is a beautiful white marble (at least it looks like it) statue that is quietly tucked away a bit out of sight - you focus on the high altar, to the exclusion of the statues to the left and right as you enter. It struck me because for nearly three years I had been going in that chapel multiple times a day for Mass, community prayer and personal prayer and yet I had never really thought about his being there. And as I realized that he had been there the whole time though I was unaware, I realized that although I hadn't really had a great devotion to him he surely had been interceding for me - another foster-son whom he has been humbly guiding toward holiness and manhood. What a great example we have in him.
O Humble Joseph, pray for us!
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