A Christian never takes pleasure from the fact of a man's death

2 MAY 2011. This morning the Director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., released the following statement on the death of Osama Bin Laden:

Osama Bin Laden, as is known, claimed responsibility for grave acts that spread division and hate among the peoples, manipulating religion to that end. A Christian never takes pleasure from the fact of a man's death, but sees it as an opportunity to reflect on each person's responsibility, before God and humanity, and to hope and commit oneself to seeing that no event become another occasion to disseminate hate but rather to foster peace.

For Christians, the death of Osama Bin Laden is not an opportunity for rejoicing, but a reason to seriously consider the impact that we have on the world by the way in which we exercise our free will. That is why the call to unite ourselves in a new and divine holiness--often called for by Blessed John Paul II--is so desperately needed in our world. We truly need the Divine Will to crush our willfulness, to conform us perfectly to the will of God and to the will of Mary, whose own will was, through grace, perfectly conformed to the Divine Will.

Our Lady, Queen of the Divine Will, pray for us.

John Paul II is blessed!

PAPAL MASS
ON THE OCCASION OF THE
BEATIFICATION OF THE SERVANT OF GOD JOHN PAUL II

HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI

Saint Peter's Square
Sunday, 1 May 2011

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Six years ago we gathered in this Square to celebrate the funeral of Pope John Paul II. Our grief at his loss was deep, but even greater was our sense of an immense grace which embraced Rome and the whole world: a grace which was in some way the fruit of my beloved predecessor’s entire life, and especially of his witness in suffering. Even then we perceived the fragrance of his sanctity, and in any number of ways God’s People showed their veneration for him. For this reason, with all due respect for the Church’s canonical norms, I wanted his cause of beatification to move forward with reasonable haste. And now the longed-for day has come; it came quickly because this is what was pleasing to the Lord: John Paul II is blessed!

I would like to offer a cordial greeting to all of you who on this happy occasion have come in such great numbers to Rome from all over the world – cardinals, patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic Churches, brother bishops and priests, official delegations, ambassadors and civil authorities, consecrated men and women and lay faithful, and I extend that greeting to all those who join us by radio and television.

Today is the Second Sunday of Easter, which Blessed John Paul II entitled Divine Mercy Sunday. The date was chosen for today’s celebration because, in God’s providence, my predecessor died on the vigil of this feast. Today is also the first day of May, Mary’s month, and the liturgical memorial of Saint Joseph the Worker. All these elements serve to enrich our prayer, they help us in our pilgrimage through time and space; but in heaven a very different celebration is taking place among the angels and saints! Even so, God is but one, and one too is Christ the Lord, who like a bridge joins earth to heaven. At this moment we feel closer than ever, sharing as it were in the liturgy of heaven.

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (Jn 20:29). In today’s Gospel Jesus proclaims this beatitude: the beatitude of faith. For us, it is particularly striking because we are gathered to celebrate a beatification, but even more so because today the one proclaimed blessed is a Pope, a Successor of Peter, one who was called to confirm his brethren in the faith. John Paul II is blessed because of his faith, a strong, generous and apostolic faith. We think at once of another beatitude: “Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven” (Mt 16:17). What did our heavenly Father reveal to Simon? That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Because of this faith, Simon becomes Peter, the rock on which Jesus can build his Church. The eternal beatitude of John Paul II, which today the Church rejoices to proclaim, is wholly contained in these sayings of Jesus: “Blessed are you, Simon” and “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe!” It is the beatitude of faith, which John Paul II also received as a gift from God the Father for the building up of Christ’s Church.

Our thoughts turn to yet another beatitude, one which appears in the Gospel before all others. It is the beatitude of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of the Redeemer. Mary, who had just conceived Jesus, was told by Saint Elizabeth: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord” (Lk 1:45). The beatitude of faith has its model in Mary, and all of us rejoice that the beatification of John Paul II takes place on this first day of the month of Mary, beneath the maternal gaze of the one who by her faith sustained the faith of the Apostles and constantly sustains the faith of their successors, especially those called to occupy the Chair of Peter. Mary does not appear in the accounts of Christ’s resurrection, yet hers is, as it were, a continual, hidden presence: she is the Mother to whom Jesus entrusted each of his disciples and the entire community. In particular we can see how Saint John and Saint Luke record the powerful, maternal presence of Mary in the passages preceding those read in today’s Gospel and first reading. In the account of Jesus’ death, Mary appears at the foot of the cross (Jn 19:25), and at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles she is seen in the midst of the disciples gathered in prayer in the Upper Room (Acts 1:14).

Today’s second reading also speaks to us of faith. Saint Peter himself, filled with spiritual enthusiasm, points out to the newly-baptized the reason for their hope and their joy. I like to think how in this passage, at the beginning of his First Letter, Peter does not use language of exhortation; instead, he states a fact. He writes: “you rejoice”, and he adds: “you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Pet 1:6, 8-9). All these verbs are in the indicative, because a new reality has come about in Christ’s resurrection, a reality to which faith opens the door. “This is the Lord’s doing”, says the Psalm (118:23), and “it is marvelous in our eyes”, the eyes of faith.

Dear brothers and sisters, today our eyes behold, in the full spiritual light of the risen Christ, the beloved and revered figure of John Paul II. Today his name is added to the host of those whom he proclaimed saints and blesseds during the almost twenty-seven years of his pontificate, thereby forcefully emphasizing the universal vocation to the heights of the Christian life, to holiness, taught by the conciliar Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium. All of us, as members of the people of God – bishops, priests, deacons, laity, men and women religious – are making our pilgrim way to the heavenly homeland where the Virgin Mary has preceded us, associated as she was in a unique and perfect way to the mystery of Christ and the Church. Karol Wojtyła took part in the Second Vatican Council, first as an auxiliary Bishop and then as Archbishop of Kraków. He was fully aware that the Council’s decision to devote the last chapter of its Constitution on the Church to Mary meant that the Mother of the Redeemer is held up as an image and model of holiness for every Christian and for the entire Church. This was the theological vision which Blessed John Paul II discovered as a young man and subsequently maintained and deepened throughout his life. A vision which is expressed in the scriptural image of the crucified Christ with Mary, his Mother, at his side. This icon from the Gospel of John (19:25-27) was taken up in the episcopal and later the papal coat-of-arms of Karol Wojtyła: a golden cross with the letter “M” on the lower right and the motto “Totus tuus”, drawn from the well-known words of Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort in which Karol Wojtyła found a guiding light for his life: “Totus tuus ego sum et omnia mea tua sunt. Accipio te in mea omnia. Praebe mihi cor tuum, Maria – I belong entirely to you, and all that I have is yours. I take you for my all. O Mary, give me your heart” (Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, 266).

In his Testament, the new Blessed wrote: “When, on 16 October 1978, the Conclave of Cardinals chose John Paul II, the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, said to me: ‘The task of the new Pope will be to lead the Church into the Third Millennium’”. And the Pope added: “I would like once again to express my gratitude to the Holy Spirit for the great gift of the Second Vatican Council, to which, together with the whole Church – and especially with the whole episcopate – I feel indebted. I am convinced that it will long be granted to the new generations to draw from the treasures that this Council of the twentieth century has lavished upon us. As a Bishop who took part in the Council from the first to the last day, I desire to entrust this great patrimony to all who are and will be called in the future to put it into practice. For my part, I thank the Eternal Shepherd, who has enabled me to serve this very great cause in the course of all the years of my Pontificate”. And what is this “cause”? It is the same one that John Paul II presented during his first solemn Mass in Saint Peter’s Square in the unforgettable words: “Do not be afraid! Open, open wide the doors to Christ!” What the newly-elected Pope asked of everyone, he was himself the first to do: society, culture, political and economic systems he opened up to Christ, turning back with the strength of a titan – a strength which came to him from God – a tide which appeared irreversible. By his witness of faith, love and apostolic courage, accompanied by great human charisma, this exemplary son of Poland helped believers throughout the world not to be afraid to be called Christian, to belong to the Church, to speak of the Gospel. In a word: he helped us not to fear the truth, because truth is the guarantee of liberty. To put it even more succinctly: he gave us the strength to believe in Christ, because Christ is Redemptor hominis, the Redeemer of man. This was the theme of his first encyclical, and the thread which runs though all the others.

When Karol Wojtyła ascended to the throne of Peter, he brought with him a deep understanding of the difference between Marxism and Christianity, based on their respective visions of man. This was his message: man is the way of the Church, and Christ is the way of man. With this message, which is the great legacy of the Second Vatican Council and of its “helmsman”, the Servant of God Pope Paul VI, John Paul II led the People of God across the threshold of the Third Millennium, which thanks to Christ he was able to call “the threshold of hope”. Throughout the long journey of preparation for the great Jubilee he directed Christianity once again to the future, the future of God, which transcends history while nonetheless directly affecting it. He rightly reclaimed for Christianity that impulse of hope which had in some sense faltered before Marxism and the ideology of progress. He restored to Christianity its true face as a religion of hope, to be lived in history in an “Advent” spirit, in a personal and communitarian existence directed to Christ, the fullness of humanity and the fulfillment of all our longings for justice and peace.

Finally, on a more personal note, I would like to thank God for the gift of having worked for many years with Blessed Pope John Paul II. I had known him earlier and had esteemed him, but for twenty-three years, beginning in 1982 after he called me to Rome to be Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, I was at his side and came to revere him all the more. My own service was sustained by his spiritual depth and by the richness of his insights. His example of prayer continually impressed and edified me: he remained deeply united to God even amid the many demands of his ministry. Then too, there was his witness in suffering: the Lord gradually stripped him of everything, yet he remained ever a “rock”, as Christ desired. His profound humility, grounded in close union with Christ, enabled him to continue to lead the Church and to give to the world a message which became all the more eloquent as his physical strength declined. In this way he lived out in an extraordinary way the vocation of every priest and bishop to become completely one with Jesus, whom he daily receives and offers in the Church.

Blessed are you, beloved Pope John Paul II, because you believed! Continue, we implore you, to sustain from heaven the faith of God’s people. You often blessed us in this Square from the Apostolic Palace: Bless us, Holy Father! Amen.

IMAGES: Associated Press/Reuters.

Blessed John Paul II

(Biography of Blessed John Paul II read today at his beatification by Cardinal Agostino Vallini)

Karol Józef Wojtyla was born in the Polish town of Wadowice on 18 May 1920 to Karol and Emilia Kaczorowska. He was baptized on 20 June of that year in Wadowice's parish church.

The second of two children, the joy and serenity of his childhood was shaken by the premature death of his mother when Karol was nine (1929). Three years later, in 1932, his older brother Edmund also died and then in 1941, when he was 21, he also lost his father.

Brought up in a solid patriotic and religious tradition, he learned from his father, a deeply Christian man, piety and love for one's neighbor, which he nourished with constant prayer and participation in the sacraments.

The characteristics of his spirituality, to which he remained faithful until his death, were a sincere devotion to the Holy Spirit and love for the Madonna. His relationship with the Mother of God was particularly deep and vibrant, lived with the tenderness of a child who abandons himself to his mother's embrace and with the vigor of a gallant, always ready for his lady's command: "Do what my Son asks!" His complete trust in Mary, which as a bishop he expressed with the motto Totus tuus, also reveals his secret of looking at the world with the eyes of the Mother of God.

Young Karol's rich personality matured with the interweaving of his intellectual, moral, and spiritual gifts with the events of his day, which marked the history of his country and of Europe.

During the years of his secondary education, a passion for theater and poetry grew in him, which he cultivated in the theatrical group of the Faculty of Philology at Krakow's Jagiellonian University where he was enrolled during the 1938 academic year.

During the period of Nazi occupation of Poland, together with his studies that he carried on in secret, he spent four years (October 1940 to August 1944) working in the Solvay chemical factory, directly encountering the social problems of the working world and gathering the precious wealth of experience that he was able to draw upon in his future social teachings, first as Archbishop of Krakow and subsequently as Supreme Pontiff.

Throughout these years his inclination towards the priesthood developed, a path he furthered by attending clandestine courses in theology at the Seminary of Krakow from October of 1942. He was assisted greatly in recognizing his priestly vocation by a lay man, Jan Tyranowski, a true apostle of youth. From then on the young Karol had a clear understanding of the universal call to holiness of all Christians, and the fundamental role of the laity in the mission of the Church.

He received priestly ordination on 1 November 1946 and the day after, in the evocative atmosphere of the crypt of St. Leonard in the cathedral of Wawel, he celebrated his first Mass.

He was sent to Rome to complete his theological formation at the Faculty of Theology of the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum), where he was immersed in the source of sound doctrine, having his first encounter with the vibrancy and richness of the Universal Church from the privileged position of life on the other side of the 'Iron Curtain'. At around this time he met with Padre Pio of Pietrelcina.

After graduating with highest honors in June of 1948, he returned to Krakow to begin his pastoral duties as a parish vicar. He undertook his ministry with enthusiasm and generosity. After obtaining his university teaching qualification, he began teaching in the Faculty of Theology at the Jagiellonian University then, when that faculty was closed, in the diocesan Seminary of Krakow and the Catholic University of Lublin.

The years he spent in the company of young students enabled him to gain a profound understanding of the restlessness of their hearts and he young priest was a not only a teacher for them, but also a spiritual guide and friend.

At the age of 38 he was appointed as auxiliary bishop of Krakow. On 28 September 1958, he was ordained a bishop by Archbishop Eugeniusz Baziak, whom he succeeded as archbishop of Krakow in 1964. He was created a cardinal by Pope Paul VI on 26 June 1967.

As bishop of the Diocese of Krakow, he was immediately appreciated as a man of robust and courageous faith, close to the people and aware of the real problems they faced.

He was an interlocutor capable of listening and of dialog without ever conceding to compromise. He affirmed to all the primacy of God and of Christ as the foundation for a true humanism and the source of inalienable human rights. Beloved by his priests and esteemed by his brother bishops, he was also feared by those who regarded him as an adversary.

On 16 October 1978 he was elected Bishop and Pontiff of Rome and took the name of John Paul II. His shepherd's heart, entirely given over to the cause of the Kingdom of God, was opened to the entire world. "Christ's love" led him to visit the parishes of Rome and to announce the Gospel in all places. It was the driving force for his innumerable apostolic visits to various continents, undertaken to confirm his Christian brothers and sisters in the faith, to comfort the afflicted and the discouraged, to bring the message of reconciliation between Christian faiths, and to build bridges of friendship between believers in the one God and all of good will.

His illustrious teachings focused on nothing other than proclaiming Christ,the sole Savior of humanity, always and everywhere.

In his extraordinary missionary zeal, he had a particular love for the young. He envisioned the World Youth Day gatherings with the objective of announcing Jesus Christ and his Gospel to the new generations in order to enable them to actively shape their future and to co-operate in building a better world.

His solicitude as universal Shepherd was demonstrated in the convocation of numerous assemblies of the Synods of Bishops, the erection of dioceses and ecclesiastical circumscriptions, in the promulgation of the Codes of Canon Law for the Latin and Eastern Churches and the catechism of the Catholic Church, and in the publication of encyclical letters and apostolic exhortations. In order to promote occasions for a more intense spiritual life for the People of God, he proclaimed the extraordinary Jubilee of Redemption, the Marian Year, the Year of the Eucharist,and the Great Jubilee of 2000.

John Paul II had lived through the tragic experience of two dictatorships, survived an assassination attempt on 13 May 1981 and, in his later years, suffered grave physical hardship due to the progression of his illness. However, his overwhelming optimism, based on his trust in divine Providence, drove him to constantly look to horizons of hope, inviting people to break down the walls between them, to brush aside passivity in order to attain the goals of spiritual, moral and material renewal.

He concluded his long and fruitful earthly existence in the Vatican Apostolic Palace on Saturday, 2 April 2005, the vigil of the Second Sunday of Easter (Dominica in Albis), which he entitled the Sunday of Divine Mercy. The funeral was held in St. Peter's Square on 8 April 2005.

A touching testimony of the good he brought about during his life was seen by the participation of delegations from all over the world and of millions of men and women, believers and non-believers alike, who recognized in him a clear sign of God's love for humanity.

Image: REUTERS/Max Rossi

Alleluia! He is Risen

O Christ, our risen Lord,
have mercy on us Your Children.
Alleluia.

Holy Saturday

23 APRIL 2011. Consider where we commemorate that Christ is today. He has descended to the dead. Today He is dwelling with the dead to lovingly search them out and call them forth to resurrection with Him in the glory of the heavenly host.

These lost sheep who had gone into the grave before Christ are the first for whom He searches. But, today He is searching for us also, lost by our own sin.Yet, still He calls us forth:

Something strange is happening—there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.

He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: “My Lord be with you all.” Christ answered him: “And with your spirit.” He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”

I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated.

For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I, whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of man, I became like a man without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed to the Jews in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden.

See on my face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in my image. On my back see the marks of the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back. See my hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree.

I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side for you who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side has healed the pain in yours. My sleep will rouse you from your sleep in hell. The sword that pierced me has sheathed the sword that was turned against you.

Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly paradise. I will not restore you to that paradise, but I will enthrone you in heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God. The throne formed by cherubim awaits you, its bearers swift and eager. The bridal chamber is adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places are prepared, the treasure houses of all good things lie open. The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity.

(the second reading from today's Office of Readings--"From an ancient homily on Holy Saturday")

Image: Hans Holbein, The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb (1521).

A Prayer to be Nothingness

O Lord, ever loving and faithful God,
help me to be little in your eyes,
and in the eyes of men.
May I shrink until there is nothing left of my will.
Take my willfulness and admonish it,
reduce it to nothingness, so that I may reside,
with Mary, the most chaste spouse of the Holy Spirit,
and Saint Joseph, her earthly husband, alone in the light
of Your Divine Will.

Our Father, may your Will reign in me as it does in heaven.
By grace may I be buried in the ocean of Your Will,
so that it is not my life, but Yours.
Not my living, but You living in me.
Not my my prayer, but Your prayer to the Holy Trinity in me.
Not my love, but Your love returned to You.
Not the glory You have given me,
as a creature created in your image and likeness,
but Your Glory returned to You in full.

May I be so little as to no longer count, but
to live only in You, dear Savior,
only-begotten Son of the Father Almighty.

In these last days of Lent, during this Holy Week,
as the Church struggles with anxieties of hope
for the coming celebration of Your Resurrection,
may this prayer be pleasing to You,
so that I may be nothing,
and, in my nothingness gain true servitude to You,
one, holy and true God.

Amen.

Blessed Margaret of Castello

13 APRIL 2011. Today we commemorate Blessed Margaret of Castello, patron of the poor, crippled, and unwanted.

Prayer

Blessed Margaret,
unwanted by your parents and abandoned to the world,
you entrusted everything to God,
and prayerfully lived in loving service to others.
Help us by your prayers,
to also be so trusting of our Lord.
May we, by your holy intercession,
gain the freedom to truly open ourselves 
to the workings of the Divine Will,
to the supernal incarnation of our Eucharistic Lord in each of us.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Amen.

New Feast Day and Prayer for Blessed John Paul II

12 APRIL 2011. To coincide with today's announcement from the Vatican that Blessed John Paul II's feast day will be celebrated on 22 October, the date that Cardinal Wojtyla became pope, Rome has also released a new collect to be said during the feast day and thanksgiving masses for Blessed John Paul II:

Prayer

O God, who are rich in mercy
and who willed that Blessed John Paul II
should preside as Pope over your universal Church,
grant, we pray, that instructed by his teaching,
we may open our hearts to the saving grace of Christ,
the sole Redeemer of mankind,
Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.

Amen

Prayer in Time of Need

O God help me!
Free me from this burden.
That, with your love alone supporting me,
I may ever seek and be united to your Divine Will.
But, not my request be answered--not my will be done,
but Yours. Yours alone.
Holy, living, and triune God.

Amen.

Saint Joseph, husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary

19 MARCH 2011. While the commemoration of saints during the season of lent is more limited than at other times of the liturgical year, today we celebrate the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Those attending mass today will notice that the Lenten staple of violet (purple) vestments of the priest and deacon have been replaced by white.

Historically this date has long been reserved for Saint Joseph. By the tenth century several Western calendars noted the date of March 19 as dedicated to the commemoration of the patron of families. By A.D. 1479 the commemoration of Saint Joseph's day was observed in Rome, and Pope Saint Pius V extended the feast to the entire Roman Rite on 14 July 1570.

Mention of Saint Joseph first appears in the Gospels of Saint Matthew and Saint Luke, who trace Saint Joseph's Davidic lineage. However, the historical Joseph is a difficult figurer to pin down. Some traditions hold that he was an old widower who took Mary in as his wife to look after the young girl with child. Other traditions tell that Saint Joseph was probably about 18 or 19 years old when he was betrothed to Mary (She being about 15 or 16 years old). History, too, disputes Joseph's trade. While he is usually referred to today as a carpenter, the Gospel of Saint Matthew refers to Jesus as the son of a tekton--a general word that could be used to describe any maker of things. Some modern scholars thus cast Saint Joseph in the historical context of an itinerant worker-a more marginalized class of society--and other scholars believe that Saint Joseph may have been a skilled artisan and learned man. What does appear clear, however, is that Saint Joseph did not witness Jesus' public ministry. The last mention of the presence of Saint Joseph in the Gospels is Saint Luke's account of Joseph and Mary finding Jesus in the temple when he was about 12 years old. (Lk 2:41-51)

So, it appears that Saint Joseph died before the beginning of Jesus' public ministry. This is also historically supported by the fact that Joseph of Arimathea took charge of Jesus' body after His death on the cross--under Jewish custom this would have been Saint Joseph's charge--and the fact that Jesus, from the cross, entrusted Mary's care to Saint John, which would not have occurred if Saint Joseph had been alive. And, indeed, Catholic tradition tells that Saint Joseph died in the arms of Mary and Jesus.

However, what is most clear, regardless of Saint Joseph's age or trade, was that he was an essential element in the history of salvation--the necessary protector of Our Lady and the child Jesus at the moment of the Incarnation of the Word and afterwards. And, according to the writings of the great Pope Blessed John Paul II, it was Joseph's dedication to Christ, in the silent shroud of history, that truly shows the measure of the man:

The same aura of silence that envelops everything else about Joseph also shrouds his work as a carpenter in the house of Nazareth. It is, however, a silence that reveals in a special way the inner portrait of the man. The Gospels speak exclusively of what Joseph "did." Still, they allow us to discover in his "actions" - shrouded in silence as they are - an aura of deep contemplation. Joseph was in daily contact with the mystery "hidden from ages past," and which "dwelt" under his roof. This explains, for example, why St. Teresa of Jesus, the great reformer of the Carmelites, promoted the renewal of veneration to St. Joseph in Western Christianity.

The total sacrifice, whereby Joseph surrendered his whole existence to the demands of the Messiah's coming into his home, becomes understandable only in the light of his profound interior life. It was from this interior life that "very singular commands and consolations came, bringing him also the logic and strength that belong to simple and clear souls, and giving him the power of making great decisions-such as the decision to put his liberty immediately at the disposition of the divine designs, to make over to them also his legitimate human calling, his conjugal happiness, to accept the conditions, the responsibility and the burden of a family, but, through an incomparable virginal love, to renounce that natural conjugal love that is the foundation and nourishment of the family.

This submission to God, this readiness of will to dedicate oneself to all that serves him, is really nothing less than that exercise of devotion which constitutes one expression of the virtue of religion.

The communion of life between Joseph and Jesus leads us to consider once again the mystery of the Incarnation, precisely in reference to the humanity of Jesus as the efficacious instrument of his divinity for the purpose of sanctifying man: "By virtue of his divinity, Christ's human actions were salvific for us, causing grace within us, either by merit or by a certain efficacy."

Among those actions, the gospel writers highlight those which have to do with the Paschal Mystery, but they also underscore the importance of physical contact with Jesus for healing (cf. for example, Mk 1:41), and the influence Jesus exercised upon John the Baptist when they were both in their mothers' wombs (cf. Lk 1:41-44).

As we have seen, the apostolic witness did not neglect the story of Jesus' birth, his circumcision, his presentation in the Temple, his flight into Egypt and his hidden life in Nazareth. It recognized the "mystery" of grace present in each of these saving "acts," inasmuch as they all share the same source of love: the divinity of Christ. If through Christ's humanity this love shone on all mankind, the first beneficiaries were undoubtedly those whom the divine will had most intimately associated with itself: Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and Joseph, his presumed father.

Why should the "fatherly" love of Joseph not have had an influence upon the "filial" love of Jesus? And vice versa why should the "filial" love of Jesus not have had an influence upon the "fatherly" love of Joseph, thus leading to a further deepening of their unique relationship? Those souls most sensitive to the impulses of divine love have rightly seen in Joseph a brilliant example of the interior life.

(Pope Blessed John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Redemptoris Custos, delivered 15 August 1989).

Prayer

Grant, we pray, almighty God,
that by Saint Joseph’s intercession
your Church may constantly watch over
the unfolding of the mysteries of human salvation,
whose beginnings you entrusted to his faithful care.
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.

With Deepest Thanks: We Bid Farewell to Bishop Ricard

11 MARCH 2011. Here in the northwest corner of Florida, otherwise known as L.A. (Lower Alabama) or Red Hills Country, we have known and loved a shepherd of our local church for many years. However, it was announced today that the Holy Father has accepted Bishop John Ricard's request to retire for health reasons. Archbishop Thomas Wenski will serve as diocesan administrator until a new bishop is appointed by the Holy Father.

While Bishop Ricard came to us by way of the Archdiocese of the Baltimore in the Northeast, he is, indeed, one of us. Born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, he is a native of the Sunbelt and no stranger to our ways of culture and the peculiar, some would say, manners that we exhibit. "Yes Ma'm."

However, Bishop Ricard is indeed not just one of us. He has served us as an exemplar of Christian living that we aspire to--to truly place ourselves in service to our Lord through love for our neighbor. Bishop Ricard's love for his flock and his ministry and individuals that he addresses as a bishop--and as a fellow man--is evident. My first grade daughter loves Bishop Ricard--he probably does not know her name. She has only seen him at the hand full of school masses that he has celebrated at her school over the last two school years; but, she has gotten hugs from him and she tells me how much he loves her and all the school children.

The eyes and ears of babes are most attuned to love. The world has not yet impressed the callus of experience on their hearts.

God bless Bishop John Ricard now and in his future endeavors. He has notified the people of the diocese that he will return to St. Joseph Seminary in Washington, D.C. to serve as spiritual director there--"which will provide [him] a less rigorous ministry within the Church." Yet his service to the Church and the people of God will continue.

This Sunday, 13 March, there will be two farewell receptions at the Co-Cathedral of St. Thomas More following the 10:00 a.m. and 11:45 a.m. masses. All are welcome. I would encourage anyone who can attend to do so: please extend a warm hand--or hug--to our faithful pastor that has served the Church in this corner of the world so well.

From The Holy Father's 2011 Lenten Message

During the entire Lenten period, the Church offers us God's Word with particular abundance. By meditating and internalizing the Word in order to live it every day, we learn a precious and irreplaceable form of prayer; by attentively listening to God, who continues to speak to our hearts, we nourish the itinerary of faith initiated on the day of our Baptism.