Encountering the Heart of St. Joseph: Masterpiece

St. John Paul II says in “Redemptoris Custos” that “it is a silence that reveals in a special way the inner portrait of the man” St. Joseph. Immediately I was reminded of St. John Paul II’s later statement in his Letter to Artists that “all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: in a certain sense they are to make of it … a masterpiece,” and this is something that St. Joseph embodied fully. Such a weighty task begins in the contemplation of the divine. We have the Scriptures, the sacraments, the daily moments of grace inviting us to prayer; St. Joseph had the holy face of God staring up at him in his home. We have the Eucharist; St. Joseph fed the bread of life.

There is no part of St. Joseph’s life that was separate from God, and it is his constant interior contemplation of the mystery of God that helps him to discern the will of the Father and then gives him the strength to do it. As such, St. Joseph not only becomes the greatest saint, second to Mary, but he becomes the pillar of families, the mirror of patience, the lover of poverty and the terror of demons.

Our task is to do the same: to live so deeply in the heart of God that our lives are teeming with grace, and when we stand before the Lord at the end of time, we can behold the face of God as St. Joseph did and say, “I made my life a masterpiece.”

Olivia Gulino - Theology faculty, St. Joseph’s Academy, Baton Rouge