Ite ad Joseph
Dear Faithful,
Never in the history of the Church and the SSPX in India have we had to face so many evils as to-day. Whether it is all the anti-Catholic attitude of the authorities, present very much in their efforts to thwart and if possible to suppress all Christian influence by showing no scruples in the choice of their methods, or the evil modernism that is still causing a huge wreckage within the Church since Vatican II or even in the face of an invisible microbe – the whole globe panicking – whatever be the reason – we are truly living in a troubled times.
What will be the future of our country? What will be the fate of our beloved mission in our motherland? We are assured that the future is in the hands of divine Providence. What about present? What are we to do? Surely this month has been one of the toughest for everyone. Panic, anxiety, even despair seems to be accelerating. With no readily-available missionaries, there is truly a shortage of ‘food for our soul’. What are we to do? Well, providentially we seem to hear, in stronger tones the voice of the Church similar to that of Pharaoh of old: Go to Joseph! Yes, let us entrust ourselves once again to the care of the most powerful heavenly protector St. Joseph.
Were we to go to the very source of the countless evils that distress society (this epidemic is surely a consequence of our sins) we would soon realize that they all begin at one point: man’s revolt against lawful authority. Man thought and is still thinking he can somehow replace God Almighty. To this great evil, we find the sovereign remedy in St. Joseph namely his absolute and unconditional acceptance of the most holy will of God. It is thereby he excelled in holiness all the Patriarchs and Prophets as well as the Saints of the New Testament, even the Apostles himself. It is the teaching of the theologians that even the angels did not surpass him in the sanctity.
What, for example, the Patriarchs had in part, St. Joseph possessed all in himself: ‘the intrepid faith of an Abraham, the unshaken hope of a Jacob, the ardent charity of a David, as well as the extraordinary prudence of the Joseph of the Old Testament, the perfect justice of Noah, the rare fortitude of a Job and the heroic temperance of a Moses – to refer only to the theological and cardinal virtues which form the very foundation of our spiritual progress and can raise us, as they did St. Joseph to the very summit of sanctity’. His long and intimate association with Jesus brought about the astounding continual increase of grace and lifting him gradually to greater heights.
The devotion to St Joseph, therefore, greater today than ever before, should be for us a most fruitful source of blessings as it was also to Our Lady: a comfort in trails, a support in tribulations and an inseparable companion in the work our salvation.
So dear faithful, let us learn from this great saint to be always submissive to the Holy will of God. Come, what may – you have one thing to do: Go to Joseph!
I promise to remember each and every one of you at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. May the Heart of Jesus bless you and protect you.
With my priestly blessings,
Fr. Therasian Babu