Monday, March 20, 2006

St. Joseph

Remiss of me not to have something new written for the Solemnity of St. Joseph.A Carmelite nun, my good friend Sr. Maura, once complained to me that "all the hymns to Our Holy Father St. Joseph are so dumb!"

As truer words have never been spoken, I immediately took up the challenge and wrote a draft of what became my Hymn to St. Joseph, which can be found in my hymn collection. It's under copyright so I can't just post it, but it's not enough. Really--how can someone do justice to this great Saint in a hymn?

In the Scriptures many are famous for being sons. But very few are famous for being fathers. Abraham, preeminently, and possibly Noah. Sons show forth the Son; fathers show forth the Father. This is one of the meanings of the life of St. Joseph: God the Father wants to be known in His Fatherhood.

A good hymn for St. Joseph would include the figure of Abraham. It would have a reference to the first reading of the Mass for the day from 2 Samuel--which is also the reading for Christmas Eve morning and for the 4th Sunday of Advent in one year: "The Lord Himself will build you a house."

God the Father raised St. Joseph to a high dignity. Yes, it was a dignity of living in a home with the Son, as the husband of the Blessed Mother. But it is because of his reflection of the Father, as Father, that makes me depend upon him so much.

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