A recent post offered the beginning of Pope Francis' proclamation of the "Year of Saint Joseph." This Apostolic Letter continues/concludes as follows:
"7. A father in the shadows
"The Polish writer Jan Dobraczyński, in his book The Shadow of the Father,[24] tells the story of Saint Joseph's life in the form of a novel. He uses the evocative image of a shadow to define Joseph. In his relationship to Jesus, Joseph was the earthly shadow of the heavenly Father: he watched over him and protected him, never leaving him to go his own way. We can think of Moses’ words to Israel: 'In the wilderness… you saw how the Lord your God carried you, just as one carries a child, all the way that you travelled' (Deut 1:31). In a similar way, Joseph acted as a father for his whole life.[25]
"Fathers are not born, but made. A man does not become a father simply by bringing a child into the world, but by taking up the responsibility to care for that child. Whenever a man accepts responsibility for the life of another, in some way he becomes a father to that person.
"Children today often seem orphans, lacking fathers. The Church too needs fathers. Saint Paul's words to the Corinthians remain timely: 'Though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers' (1 Cor 4:15). Every priest or bishop should be able to add, with the Apostle: 'I became your father in Christ Jesus through the Gospel' (ibid.). Paul likewise calls the Galatians: 'My little children, with whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you!' (4:19).
"Being a father entails introducing children to life and reality. Not holding them back, being overprotective or possessive, but rather making them capable of deciding for themselves, enjoying freedom and exploring new possibilities. Perhaps for this reason, Joseph is traditionally called a 'most chaste' father. That title is not simply a sign of affection, but the summation of an attitude that is the opposite of possessiveness. Chastity is freedom from possessiveness in every sphere of one's life. Only when love is chaste, is it truly love. A possessive love ultimately becomes dangerous: it imprisons, constricts and makes for misery. God himself loved humanity with a chaste love; he left us free even to go astray and set ourselves against him. The logic of love is always the logic of freedom, and Joseph knew how to love with extraordinary freedom. He never made himself the centre of things. He did not think of himself, but focused instead on the lives of Mary and Jesus.
"Joseph found happiness not in mere self-sacrifice but in self-gift. In him, we never see frustration but only trust. His patient silence was the prelude to concrete expressions of trust. Our world today needs fathers. It has no use for tyrants who would domineer others as a means of compensating for their own needs. It rejects those who confuse authority with authoritarianism, service with servility, discussion with oppression, charity with a welfare mentality, power with destruction. Every true vocation is born of the gift of oneself, which is the fruit of mature sacrifice. The priesthood and consecrated life likewise require this kind of maturity. Whatever our vocation, whether to marriage, celibacy or virginity, our gift of self will not come to fulfilment if it stops at sacrifice; were that the case, instead of becoming a sign of the beauty and joy of love, the gift of self would risk being an expression of unhappiness, sadness and frustration.
"When fathers refuse to live the lives of their children for them, new and unexpected vistas open up. Every child is the bearer of a unique mystery that can only be brought to light with the help of a father who respects that child's freedom. A father who realizes that he is most a father and educator at the point when he becomes 'useless', when he sees that his child has become independent and can walk the paths of life unaccompanied. When he becomes like Joseph, who always knew that his child was not his own but had merely been entrusted to his care. In the end, this is what Jesus would have us understand when he says: 'Call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven' (Mt 23:9).
"In every exercise of our fatherhood, we should always keep in mind that it has nothing to do with possession, but is rather a 'sign' pointing to a greater fatherhood. In a way, we are all like Joseph: a shadow of the heavenly Father, who 'makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust' (Mt 5:45). And a shadow that follows his Son.
* * *
"'Get up, take the child and his mother' (Mt 2:13), God told Saint Joseph.
"The aim of this Apostolic Letter is to increase our love for this great saint, to encourage us to implore his intercession and to imitate his virtues and his zeal.
"Indeed, the proper mission of the saints is not only to obtain miracles and graces, but to intercede for us before God, like Abraham[26] and Moses[27], and like Jesus, the 'one mediator' (1 Tim 2:5), who is our 'advocate' with the Father (1 Jn 2:1) and who 'always lives to make intercession for [us]' (Heb 7:25; cf. Rom 8:34).
"The saints help all the faithful 'to strive for the holiness and the perfection of their particular state of life'.[28] Their lives are concrete proof that it is possible to put the Gospel into practice.
"Jesus told us: 'Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart' (Mt 11:29). The lives of the saints too are examples to be imitated. Saint Paul explicitly says this: 'Be imitators of me!' (1 Cor 4:16).[29] By his eloquent silence, Saint Joseph says the same.
"Before the example of so many holy men and women, Saint Augustine asked himself: 'What they could do, can you not also do?' And so he drew closer to his definitive conversion, when he could exclaim: 'Late have I loved you, Beauty ever ancient, ever new!'[30]
"We need only ask Saint Joseph for the grace of graces: our conversion.
"Let us now make our prayer to him:
"Hail, Guardian of the Redeemer,
Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
To you God entrusted his only Son;
in you Mary placed her trust;
with you Christ became man.
"Blessed Joseph, to us too,
show yourself a father
and guide us in the path of life.
Obtain for us grace, mercy and courage,
and defend us from every evil. Amen.
"Given in Rome, at Saint John Lateran, on 8 December, Solemnity of the
Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the year 2020, the
eighth of my Pontificate.
Franciscus"
Notes
[24] Original edition: Cień Ojca, Warsaw, 1977.
[25] Cf. SAINT JOHN PAUL II, Apostolic Exhortation Redemptoris Custos, 7-8: AAS 82 (1990), 12-16.
[26] Cf. Gen 18:23-32.
[27] Cf. Ex 17:8-13; 32:30-35.
[28] SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, 42.
[29] Cf. 1 Cor 11:1; Phil 3:17; 1 Thess 1:6.
[30] Confessions, VIII, 11, 27: PL 32, 761; X, 27, 38: PL 32, 795.
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