When I grew up in a small rural community, St. Joseph Day was over-shadowed (to say the least) by the March 17 Feast of St. Patrick. All the festivities of the wearin’ o’ the green hung over the quiet invitation to celebrate on March 19 with the calm, reserved presence of Joseph, simple carpenter and father of Jesus.
It wasn’t until my own father was dying of cancer in March 1994 that I became so acutely grateful for and aware that my own father was much like Joseph—a man of few words, reflective, protective, a realist far from the limelight, a quiet student of nature (human and creation) … Dad continually challenged the six of us to think thoroughly through our choices and behaviors. At any given time, some one of us were more or less successful at that. Thank God, it didn’t happen to all of us at the same time. He also encouraged us to consider possibilities, to stand in our own integrity and to choose wisely and freely. Dad and mom were and are saints, no doubt!
“Fathers are not born, but made,” says Pope Francis. My hope is that somehow amid all of the natural family chaos, we offered dad a sense of confidence that he was indeed an incredible father. He, like Joseph, played “an incomparable role” in our six stories.
Unfortunately, today, within and beyond borders, children and adult children navigate life’s realities absent of the loving, trusting energy of a father. “Every poor, needy, suffering or dying person, every stranger, every prisoner, every infirm person is ‘the child’ whom Joseph continues to protect,” writes Pope Francis.
Joseph invites us all to reflect and protect so that no young person, no person at all, will be without the beautiful loving energy of a father.
To reflect on Pope Francis’ Apostolic Letter Patris Corde, click here.
—Ann Jackson, PBVM, Prairiewoods spiritual services coordinator