January 10, 2021 - "With a Father's Heart"

I am continuing today the reflection that I began last week on Patris Corde (“With a Father’s Heart”), the Apostolic Letter that Pope Francis released last month to announce the beginning of a Year Dedicated to Saint Joseph.
 
Pope Francis remarks on the “creative courage” of Saint Joseph.  Pope Francis explains what he means in this way:  “The carpenter of Nazareth was able to turn a problem into a possibility by trusting in divine providence.”  Saint Joseph certainly had to deal with the problems that his family faced.  These are problems faced by other families in the world.  Indeed, these are problems faced by migrants.  The Holy Father writes that Saint Joseph “is the special patron of all those forced to leave their native lands because of war, hatred, persecution and poverty.”  As the guardian of Jesus and Mary, Joseph cannot “be other than the guardian of the Church,” of her motherhood and the Body of Christ. “Consequently, every poor, needy, suffering, or dying person, every stranger, every prisoner, every infirm person is ‘the child’ whom Joseph continues to protect.”  From Saint Joseph, writes Pope Francis, “we must learn…to love the Church and the poor.”
 
The Holy Father next speaks about Saint Joseph as a father who teaches the value, dignity, and joy of work.  Pope Francis explains:  “A carpenter who earned an honest living to provide for his family,” Saint Joseph also teaches us “the value, the dignity and the joy of what it means to eat bread that is the fruit of one’s own labour.” This provides Pope Francis with an opportunity to launch an appeal in favor of work which has become “a burning social issue.” Pope Francis strongly believes that there is a need to appreciate the importance of dignified work, of which Saint Joseph is an exemplary patron.
 
Work, Pope Francis writes, “is a means of participating in the work of salvation, an opportunity to hasten the coming of the Kingdom, to develop our talents and abilities, and to put them at the service of society and fraternal communion.”  Those who work, the Holy Father explains, “are cooperating with God himself, and in some way become creators of the world around us.”  Pope Francis encourages everyone “to rediscover the value, the importance and the necessity of work from bringing about a new ‘normal’ from which no one is excluded.” In light of rising unemployment due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Pope calls everyone to “review our priorities” and to express our firm conviction that no young person, no person at all, no family should be without work.”
 
Pope Francis has been influenced by a book entitled The Shadow of the Father by Jan Dobraczynski.  From his reading of this work Pope Francis describes Joseph’s fatherhood of Jesus as “the earthly shadow of the heavenly Father.”
 
“Fathers are not born, but made,” says Pope Francis.  “A man does not become a father simply by bringing a child into the world, but by taking up the responsibility to care for that child.” The Holy Father laments that unfortunately in today’s society children “often seem orphans, lacking fathers who are able to introduce them “to life and reality.”  “Children need fathers who will not try to dominate them, but instead raise them to be “capable of deciding for themselves, enjoying freedom and exploring new possibilities.”

In this sense we can speak of Saint Joseph being a “most chaste” father.  This is the opposite of domineering possessiveness.  Pope Francis writes that Joseph “knew how to love with extraordinary freedom.  He never made himself the center of things.  He did not think of himself, but focused instead on the lives of Mary and Jesus.”
 
Joseph was truly happy because he gave of himself.  The Holy Father continues: “His patient silence was the prelude to concrete expressions of trust.”  Joseph stands out, therefore, as an exemplary figure for our time, in a world that “needs fathers,” and not “tyrants”; a society that “rejects those who confuse authority with authoritarianism, service with servility, discussion with oppressions, charity with a welfare mentality, power with destruction.”
 
True fathers “refuse to live the lives of their children for them,” and instead respect their freedom.  In this sense, says Pope Francis, a father realizes that “he is most a chaste father and an educator at the point when he becomes “useless,” when he sees that his child has become independent and can walk the paths of life unaccompanied.” Being a father, emphasizes the Holy Father, “has nothing to do with possession, but is rather a “sign” points to a greater fatherhood”: that of the “heavenly Father.”
 
Saint Joseph, Guardian of the Redeemer, pray for us!
 
Until next week,
Fr. John Dillon