Pope commences a cycle of catechesis on St Joseph

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At the papal audience on Wednesday 17 November, Pope Francis announced that in the coming weeks he will preach about St Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church

Vatican City (17/11/2021 18:24, Gaudium Press) After almost a year since the launch of the apostolic letter Patris Corde, dedicated to St Joseph, Pope Francis began a cycle of teachings on the Holy Patriarch at today’s papal audience on 17 November.

“Patris Corde” inaugurated the year of St Joseph on December 8, 2020, in commemoration of the proclamation made by Pius IX in 1870 of St Joseph as “Universal Patron of the Church”.

“We are living a special year dedicated to St Joseph, and in the Apostolic Letter Patris corde I collected some reflections on his figure. (For this reason I have decided to dedicate to him a cycle of catechesis, which I hope will help us further and allow us to be enlightened by his example and witness.

St. Joseph believes in God’s Providence

The Pope began by evoking the figure of Joseph of Egypt, an emblematic figure of the Old Testament. He then explained the meaning of the name Joseph: “God increase, God make grow”.

A meaning that is entirely related to the person of St. Joseph who trusts in God’s plan of salvation, for “he believes in God’s providence. He has faith in God’s providence. His whole action, as narrated in the Gospel, is dictated by the certainty that God ‘makes grow’, ‘increases’, ‘adds'”.

God manifests himself on the peripheries

Pope Francis pointed out first of all that St. Joseph did not come from Jerusalem, an important city in Israel, which was home to the scribes and teachers of the Law. But from Bethlehem and he lived in Nazareth, two small towns considered peripheral.

This, according to the Pontiff, shows that “the periphery and marginality are favoured by God”. Both in a geographical sense and in a metaphorical sense, as the Pontiff explained: “in the periphery of the soul, in feelings, in sentiments that may embarrass us. But the Lord is there to help us to go forward. The Lord continues manifesting himself in the peripheries, geographical and existential”.

The Pope asks Saint Joseph for the “discernment of the essential”.

In this sense, the society of the time and Christ and the current one are not very different explained the Pope. Society ignores the periphery as the Pharisees ignored Our Lord.

In fact, St. Joseph teaches to look at the essential, at what the world ignores and not at what the world considers as important, Francis said.

In conclusion, the Pontiff addressed all men and women who are marginalised, wishing them to find in the figure of St Joseph an example and a protector. Then Francis recited the following prayer:

Prayer to St. Joseph

“St Joseph, you who have always trusted in God and made your choices guided by his providence, teach us not to rely so much on our plans as on his plan of love. You who have come from the peripheries, help us to convert our gaze and to prefer what the world rejects and marginalizes. Comfort those who feel alone and support those who commit themselves in silence to defend life and human dignity. Amen. (FM)

With information from VaticanNews.

 

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