SAINT JOSEPH NOVENA
Christ the King Church
Each night every priest or religious and perhaps many of you, pray Night Prayer, including the Gospel Canticle of Simeon, who with his weary arms holds the baby Jesus and whispers to God: “Now Lord, you can let your servant go in peace, for my own eyes have seen the salvation you have prepared, the light to the nations and the glory of your people Israel.”
And after that joyous canticle, he turned to Mary and told her this baby would be the rise and fall of many, concluding with the words: “and your own heart will be pierced with a sword.”
At that moment, Saint Alphonsus Liguori tells us, the joy which had filled Mary’s heart must have been turned to sorrow, a sorrow which would perdure and a foreshadowing of the Cross on which her Son would offer the perfect sacrifice.
But did you ever notice that of the traditional seven sorrows, the first three were not Mary’s alone. They were shared by Mary and Joseph. Together, their suffering was a participation in the Cross of their son, just as each of the Crosses God sends to us is a way of our participating in the Cross of Jesus. “Whenever you suffer,” Mother Theresa once told an old woman, “it is really just Jesus loving you so much that he is holding you closer to his Cross.” “But could I ask him,” the woman responded, “not to hold me quite so close!?”
Joseph and Mary knew that feeling, that Via Dolorosa, that Road of Sorrows leading to the Cross of Jesus, especially on that day they went up to Jerusalem.
Chances are that Mary must have been almost hysterical when she realized that Jesus was not with them as they left the Temple precincts. And Joseph, the custos, the custodian of the child Jesus must have been beside himself with panic, as he ran from one part of the Temple to the other looking for him; his heart must have ached with the fear he would never see him again.
Like those 800,000 mothers and fathers whose children went missing in the United States last year. Most of them were found, but imagine what life is like for the 24,000 parents who will never see their children again.
But like those parents, Mary and Joseph must have carried that big heavy cross of doubt: What if we had watched him more closely? Why did we let him go off with his friends? Would this have happened if we had?
But like the parents of every lost child, they were asking foolish questions. For Mary and Joseph were good parents, just like most of those who lose a child are good parents. Listen to our beloved Pope emeritus:
"Given our perhaps unduly narrow image of the holy family, we find this surprising. But it illustrates very beautifully that in the holy family, freedom and obedience were combined in a healthy manner. The twelve-year-old was free to spend time with friends and children of his own age, and to remain in their company during the journey. Naturally, his parents expected to see him when evening came"
But despite the lack of culpibility, imagine the suffering of Saint Joseph and the Blessed Virgin as they sought to find their son. Imagine Saint Joseph as he stares into the crowd with Jesus nowhere to be seem. It is not unlike the suffering of the father who finds his child has died in the crib, or the parent who stares down the street as no little boy comes home from school. Imagine the ravaged heart of the father who will never hold that child in his arms again and you will understand why God sent his only Son to seek out the lost, raise the dead child, returning him to his mother’s arms, and lead us to a place where no one will ever be lost again.
But now Jesus was lost, and even when he is found Mary says to him: “Your father and I have sought you with great sorrow.”
Saint Ambrose tries to explain this sorrow as a foreshadowing of the paschal mystery, when he writes: “After three days Jesus is found in the temple, that it might be for a sign, that after three days of victorious suffering, he who was believed to be dead should rise again anti manifest himself to our faith, seated in heaven with divine glory.”
But no amount of theological explication can change the sufferings of Saint Joseph and the Blessed Mother as they sought for their child who was lost.
It is the suffering of one who loves. One whose heart aches for the coming of the beloved. It is the suffering of the prophets, who waited for the coming of the Lord. The suffering of the disciples waiting in the upper room. And the suffering of each one of us as we carry our crosses, waiting for the Lord to return and lead us home to heaven.
May God grant us the patience, the perseverance and the hope of Saint Joseph and the Blessed Virgin, as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
