Lenten Meditations: Tuesday 19 March 2024
| Tue Mar 19 |
m: 121, 122, 123 pm: 124, 125, 126 |
Exodus 5:1-6:1 | 1 Cor 14:20-40 | Mark 9:42-50 |
FIFTH TUESDAY 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 newborn 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.
BIBLICAL MEDITATION OF THE DAY Psalm 121 sets an excellent tone for today as we are reminded on this journey in life and learn that God is with and for His people. These are important words for us because there are times we stumble and fall and lose our way and are in danger of losing our sure footing. It is in these times that we must depend on the Lord. The lesson for us is that it is not our agility and balance that keeps us focused and on course but the grace of God. Psalm 121 is a particularly beautiful reflection on God’s sustaining role in our lives. Sometimes it may feel to us that God is absent; more often we get so caught up in our lives that it may not occur to us how God is present to us in a variety of ways.
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, forever and ever.
ANCIENT WISDOM/PRESENT GRACE: “He is Holy Joseph, because his office, of being spouse and protector of Mary, specially demanded sanctity. He is Holy Joseph because no other Saint but he lived in such and so long intimacy and familiarity with the source of all holiness, Jesus, God incarnate, and Mary, the holiest of creatures.”.”-John Henry Newman
LENTEN LYRICS: Jospeh’s Song by Michael Card
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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