Lenten Meditations: Saturday 19 March

Mar 19, 2016 by

Psalm: am: 137, 144; pm: 42, 43
OT:2 Sm 7:4-5a 12-14a-16
Epistle: Rom 4:13, 16-18, 22
Gospel: Mt 1:16,18-21,24

FIFTH SATURDAY OF LENT – St. Joseph the Worker, Foster Father of Our Lord

LITURGICAL THEME FOR THE DAY: In the gospel of Matthew, Joseph is depicted as a good man, a working carpenter, who trusted in God. He received God’s messenger who shared with him God’s will for him and for Mary, to whom he was engaged to be married. Luke’s gospel describes how Joseph took the new-born child as if he were his own. He was with Mary when, on the fortieth day after the birth, Jesus was presented in the Temple, ‘where every first-born male is designated as holy to the Lord’. The adoption of Jesus by Joseph also established Jesus in the descent of David, to accord with the prophecy that Israel’s deliverer would be of the House and lineage of David.

MEDITATION OF THE DAY: Isaiah portion of Scripture from the Eucharistic readings of the day is a reminder to me that, despite how desperate the world sometimes seems, God has not forgotten about us. He maintains His promise of the new life that awaits His children, one that will not include death, hunger, or poverty. We may not understand why these tragedies must occur, we must trust God much like St Joseph did even if it is not popular or convenient, even if we may suffer for it. He, as a man, “obeys God rather than wisdom of subculture. It takes a strong person to do this especially when we consider the culture in which Joseph lived, and in a small town, no less. Joseph models a strong faith and has something to say to the men of our day. Our culture often pressures men to bail out when there is trouble Joseph shows the way by obeying God over the pressures of prevailing culture, even if he will personally suffer for it.

PRAYER OF THE DAY: O God, who renews the world through mysteries beyond all telling, grant, we pray, that your Church may be guided by your eternal design and not be deprived of your help in this present age. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

ANCIENT WISDOM/PRESENT GRACE: “Now this holiness (of Jesus) became a reality in the most ordinary circumstances of life, those of word, of the family and the social life of a village, and this is an emphatic affirmation of the fact that the most obscure and humdrum human activities are entirely compatible with the perfection of the Son of God…in relation to this mystery, involves the conviction that the evangelical holiness proper to a child of God is possible in the ordinary circumstances of someone who is poor and obliged to work for his living.”-René Voillaume of the Little Brothers of Jesus

LENTEN DISCIPLINE – Take a few minutes to listen to Joseph’s Song by Michael Card which enters us into St. Joseph’s response to the great responsibility of being the father to the son of God or imagine Joseph’s Lullaby when he sings his child, our savior, to sleep at night.

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