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Friday, Fourth Week of Lent B (March 19, 2021)
Your Daily Blessing: May God grant you the grace to yield to His plan and will for you. Amen.
Read 2 Sam 7:4-16; Rom 4:13-22; Matt 1:16-24; pray Psalm 89 [88].
Someone told me a story of a lady who was torn between being a lawyer and doctor according to the wishes of each parent.
So she first studied medicine, and then law, but in the end practiced none but became a poet, since her real desire was never considered.
Parents have a soft spot when it comes to choices their children make regarding their vocations in life. Often they see their children as either replicas of themselves, or those to fulfill their unfulfilled dreams.
So consciously or unconsciously, parents either encourage or become real obstacles to the dreams or destinies of their children.
Blessed is that child who has a parent that not only encourages, but models to the child how to fulfill his/her dreams without imposing his/her own unfinished business with life or fate! But what of if the one who ‘messes up’ your plan A is God Himself?
On this feast of St. Joseph, the Church enjoins us to celebrate a man who is a model parent. We do not know a whole lot about him. He never even said a word in the entire scripture! All we know about him was in the third person. He lived in the shadows all through the story of Jesus and Mary. I have always wondered how Joseph handled those changes to his plans!. Did he ever get angry or mad with anyone?: With God, for ‘messing up’ his marriage plans, or with Jesus for ‘getting lost,’ or even Mary, for ‘getting pregnant’ before marriage. We will never pick his mind to know.
But what we do know is that he is an exceptional man of faith. A man who was ready to ditch his plan A for God’s plan B without questions. A man who TRUSTED God to the point of ‘stupidity’. A man with such a BIG HEART that could accommodate the twists and turns of life without melting down. A man who understood HIS PURPOSE in life and blended completely with it.
Today, after Mary, he is the most powerful patrons in heaven. An elder said to me long ago, “if you know how powerful St Joseph is, you will not seek the intercession of any other saint.” Even in heaven, he is content to be the great saint that is hardly heard. We have a lot to learn from him about the reward of sticking with God’s plan B.
PRAYER: O blessed St. Joseph, you know what it was like to abandon plan A for plan B. Please whisper into the ears of your ‘son’ Jesus, my need to understand my purpose, and the grace to blend into it and fulfill it. Amen
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