Encountering the Heart of St. Joseph: 

The Service of Fatherhood

How honorable, how thankful, how great it is to be at the service of others through the works of fatherhood. This is something I ponder daily as I wake up to start my morning prayer and cook breakfast for the entire family. 

Sometimes it is taken for granted that fathers have the duty of protecting, providing and loving their family.  But this intuition is embedded in our being as men who are called to be servants for their family. St. Joseph embodies the entire persona of what a man should be as a father and a husband. In St. John Paul II’s “Redemptoris Custos,” he emphasizes the servitude of St. Joseph as the protector of the Holy Family. His life was built on serving his wife and Jesus as the “overseer of the Lord’s birth.” 

 The family has so much to learn by looking at the life of St. Joseph and by understanding that his vocation was built around our savior and the Blessed Mother. The graces that were given to him were because of his righteousness as a man who knew God and was particularly sensitive to his voice. We are called to imitate St. Joseph as husbands, fathers and men so that we can in turn do what our Lord has entrusted us to do. St. Joseph, pray for us.

Deacon Michael Parker
Holy Rosary Church, St. Amant