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OUR PARISH
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Mission Statement
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Patron Saint >
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Everything we know about the husband of Mary and the foster father of
Jesus comes from Scripture and that has seemed too little for those who
made up legends about him. We know he was a carpenter, a working man,
for the skeptical Nazarenes ask about Jesus, "Is this not the carpenter's son?"
(Matthew 13:55). He wasn't rich for when he took Jesus to the Temple to
be circumcised and Mary to be purified he offered the sacrifice of two turtledoves
or a pair of pigeons, allowed only for those who could not afford a lamb.
(Luke 2:24)
And Joseph shines among all mankind by the most august dignity, since by divine will he
was the guardian of the Son of God and reputed as his father among men.
He set himself to protect with a mighty love and a daily solicitude his spouse and the
divine infant; regularly by his work he earned what was necessary for the one and the other
for nourishment and clothing; he guarded from death the child threatened by a monarch's
jealousy, and found for him a refuge; in the miseries of the journey and in the
bitterness of exile he was ever the companion, the assistance, and the upholder of the
Virgin and of Jesus. Now the divine house which Joseph ruled with the authority
of a Father contained within its limits the scarcely-born Church.
Joseph, content with his slight possessions, bore the trials consequent on a fortune
so slender, with greatness of soul, in imitation of his Son, who having put on the form
of a slave, being the Lord of life, subjected himself of his own free will to the spoilation
and loss of everything.
Pope Leo XIII
Encyclical, Quamquam Pluries
1889
What emanates from the figure of Saint Joseph is faith...Joseph of Nazareth is a "just
man" because he totally "lives by faith". He is holy because his faith is truly heroic.
Sacred Scripture says little of him. It does not record even one word spoken by Joseph,
the carpenter of Nazareth. And yet, even without words, he shows the depth of his faith,
his greatness.
Saint Joseph is a man of great spirit. He is great in faith, not because he speaks his
own words, but above all because he listens to the words of the living God. He listens in
silence. And his heart ceaselessly perseveres in the readiness to accept the truth contained
in the word of the living God.
We see how the word of the living God penetrates deeply into the soul of that man, that just
man. And we, do we know ho to listen to the word of God? Do we know how to absorb it into
the depths of our human personalities? Do we open our conscience in the presence of this word?
Pope John Paul II
Daily Meditations
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