LENT WEEK 5: DAY 30

Today, we celebrate the feast of St Joseph, husband of Mary and foster Father of Jesus and we want to meditate on the role of St Joseph, the man who stood by the Our Blessed Mother and worked tirelessly towards the advent of the kingdom. Blessed Joseph is at the heart of the accomplishment of the plan of God and without him a lot would not have been right. The first thing we need to know about Blessed Joseph is that he is not just the husband of our Blessed Mother but he is first and foremost a just and an upright man (Matthew 1:19). He is a model of justice and righteousness in a world where the bible declare that no one is righteous (Romans 3:10). Being declared righteous by God, he was the right person to mentor Jesus and to watch over him. The first thing we can learn from St. Joseph is how to handle difficult situations and not only handle them but handle them with wisdom. Faced with the pregnancy of a woman he had not known carnally, he decided not to react wildly but to handle it with care. But the most important thing here is he wanted to act in such a way that he won’t discredit her (Matthew 1:19b). We need to learn from him how to handle our differences with the people we love but above all ask him to grant us his self-control and his wisdom. When we feel hurt, many of us do not know he to handle the pain especially when it comes from the people we love. If you were in the place of Joseph, you would have felt betrayed and in anger, would not even have given Mary a chance to express herself, not to talk of of seeking God’s opinion on the matter or even praying over your decision. Many homes are breaking every day because of rash decisions and hurts. St Joseph is the person you need to help you handle such situations and to come out of them happily just as he handled that with Mary and lived happily with her. Learn from him how to pray over every decision before applying it and if you do it you might just receive an unknown blessing from God who sees the future and reveals it to those who consult him (Jeremiah 33:3)
Blessed Joseph is the one who introduced Jesus in the root of Jesse and the Davidic lineage which helped accomplished the plan of God. From the time of old God had made known to the people that the Messiah will come from the root of Jesse (Isaiah 11:10) and all the people were looking forward to the coming of the messiah from this lineage. The Jews till today are still waiting for the Messiah because for them Jesus did not come from the root of Jesse. They believe so because his mother is not from that root and can’t introduce him into that lineage. The person who comes from that lineage and that root is Joseph (Matthew 1:20) and when you follow the genealogy of Jesus, you will notice that it is Joseph who is from the Davidic lineage (Matthew 1:1-16). Many people wonder why this genealogy is inserted in the bible, but it is there to prove that Jesus is from the root of Jesse and is therefore the Messiah. Our Blessed Mother could not introduce Jesus into this lineage and only Joseph could. This implies that without Joseph, Jesus cannot be considered as the Messiah. How did Joseph introduce Jesus into the lineage? He did by first accepting to take our Blessed Mother as wife (Matthew 1:24) and by so doing, accepted the baby in her womb as his and this made him the foster father of Jesus. By adopting Jesus, he automatically made him a member of his family and a member of the Davidic lineage. To affirm Joseph’s paternity, the Angel gave him the responsibility of naming the child. In the Jewish culture, the father of the child is the one who names the child and it gives him authority over the child. This can be seen in the case of the naming of John the Baptist (Luke 1:57-63) where Elizabeth gave the name but they refused and went to consult the father who alone had the final word. By Naming Jesus, Joseph affirmed his paternity and his authority over Jesus and this explains why Jesus was submissive to them (Luke 2:51). Those who studied the law will agree with me that both traditionally, civilly and legally, the father of a child is the one who recognises the child legally before the law and according to tradition, all the children a woman gives birth to in a man’s house belongs to the man as long as he married her. Drawing from this we can all conclude that Jesus is Joseph’s child both traditionally and legally. Despite all the privileges our Blessed Mother had, she needed the help of Joseph to be able to fulfil the plan of God. You too need the assistance of Joseph to solve those difficult parts of the projects you have to carry out. When things are hard to accomplish, turn to Joseph and allow him help you to accomplish them. when St Joseph steps into a situation, he handles it with much care and attention and he takes it as his personal issue and makes sure it is done perfectly. Note very well that from the moment the Angel told our Blessed Mother about the plan of God, and introduced Joseph into it, he stopped communicating with our Blessed Mother and spoke mostly with Joseph for the rest of the mission (Matthew 2:13 and verse 19). It is for this reason that the duty to Protect Jesus and after him the children of God was handed to him. Blessed Joseph is the protector of the Holy Family and he is the one who saved Jesus from Herod by escaping to Egypt with him (Matthew 2:13-15) leaving behind all he owned just to make sure he saves the child. For family protection and for the protection of love ones, hand them onto the care of St Joseph who alone can keep them save from every harm. He is ready to give up everything just to save those who are entrusted unto his care.
The particularity of St Joseph is dreams and he is the perfect dreamer. His dreams are messages through which God gives direction for the accomplishment of his work. Joseph is the perfect example of how Christians should sleep. Many are they who sleep and receive messages from God and their Angels in their dreams, but who forget them when they wake. God always speaks in dreams and give warnings (Job 33:14-16) but many people are so worried that they either don’t get it or they forget. If you are among them, implore the help of St Joseph and he will help you not only to sleep appropriately but also to be able to remember the things that were revealed to you in the same dream. Allow him to teach you how to dream dreams (Joel 2:28). To dream dreams that are meaningful, dreams that bring orientation and direction, dreams that help you know what God wants of you and what he expects of you. No one can help you attain this level than St Joseph who received, understood and perfected his mission through dreams. He is also the person who is in charge to help people who are restless and can’t find sleep because of worries and problems. Joseph faced with his problem was thinking about it and sleeping at the same time and that made him have a dream in which the Angel brought him a solution (Matthew 1:20). Ask St Joseph to teach you how to sleep over your problems and wake up with solutions. If you find it difficult to sleep at night or have lost sleep because of a worry, call upon St Joseph and he will help you find sleep and receive the solution in your sleep. In him is accomplished the words of Psalm 127:2 “the Lord provides for the righteous while they are still asleep. Come to the protection of St Joseph and enjoy meaningful sleep, crowned with divine provision.
A sad thing is that little or no people pray and seek the intercession of Blessed Joseph. Many people so easily ignore or minimise his intercession but they fail to understand that he is the foster father of Jesus and can easily just like our Blessed Mother reach the Heart of Jesus in a Man to Man talk or in a Father to Son talk. I am a witness to the little or no cases channelled to him. In one my experiences I was chance to be shown the quarters of St Joseph and I was marvelled by the quietness that was there and when I asked the angel where we were and why the quietness, he told me it is the quarters of St Joseph and it is quiet because many people do not have recourse to him and the Angel encouraged me to always seek the intercession and protection of Blessed Joseph. Today, I too enjoin you to have recourse to Blessed Joseph and to seek his intercession and you will be amazed at how powerful he is in the heavenly realm.
May Blessed Joseph, man of honour and faithful husband of our Blessed Mother intercede for us, pray for us and defend us and all our love ones.

In Corda Matris.

Resolutions

I resolve to carry my God-given responsible with love.
I resolve to trust in God’s love for me.
I resolve to turn to the Father’s love each time I feel the lack of the love of a parent.

Prayer

Dear Lord, I thank you for sharing the love of your Father’s with me, teach me to always have recourse to you and St Joseph in moments of fear and emptiness, help me to be a better person and to learn virtue every day, so that I may live an exemplary life, in the midst of my brothers and sisters, Amen.