ST. JOSEPH - THE SELF-DENYING WORKER

(THÁNH GIUSE – NGƯỜI LAO ĐỘNG XÓA MÌNH)

Author : Jorathe Nắng Tím

Translator : A. Prisca

Normally, the person who takes the role of the breadwinner in a family has some dominant rights, wants to become a member that others have to be in awe of and easily tends to control all family activities.

Looking at the Holy Family in Nazareth, we realize St. Joseph is the breadwinner who makes earn of living for the whole family, protects Mother Mary, together with her, nourishes and educates Jesus.

Actually, there are few stories about St. Joseph in all Gospels as if God wants to hide him from us and even he himself wants to self-erase voluntarily.

God wants to hide him , so we just know that St. Joseph belongs to the House of Jacobs , coming from the offspring of  David or more clearly in the Gospel of Luke : “When Jesus began his ministry he was about thirty years of age. He was the son, as was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli.” (Lk 3,23). However, no tradition tells about his parents in details like Mother Mary’s ones, Joachim & Anna.

God wants to hide him, so we just know about St. Joseph through some events of Jesus’ childhood and no more clues after the event that Jesus at the age of 12 got lost in Jerusalem at the feast of Passover (cf. Lc 2,41-50)

God wants to hide him, so we just know that St. Joseph is mentioned briefly “a righteous man” (Mt 1,19) without any other praise or commendation.

God wants to hide him, so God assigns the Angel just to appear and say to him in his dreams (cf. Mt 1,20 ; 2,13.19), unlike the way to Zechariah, that is, the angel appeared to him directly in the temple (cf. Lk 1,11) or the direct way to Mother Mary in the Annunciation. (cf. Lk 1,26)

Hidden from others by God, St. Joseph voluntarily erased himself at the early time of marriage when “unwilling to expose her to shamed, he decided to divorce her quietly” beacause he did not know “it is through the holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.” (Mt 1,20).

St. Joseph voluntarily erased himself by living quietly to fulfill his duty as the breadwinner : loving, protecting, supporting Mother Mary , nourishing and educating Jesus.

St. Joseph voluntarily erased himself by self-sacrificing before any challenges to take the family to flee to Egypt for the sake of Jesus (cf. Mt 2,13-18).

St. Joseph voluntarily erased himself by keeping totally silent in service to the family. We can find no accounts on what he has said, even after 03 days of Jesus getting lost, while Mother Mary put one question to Jesus “Son, why have you done this to us?” (Lk 2,48).

And St. Joseph erased himself dramatically through his whole life of a normal worker : breadwinner with low income ; a carpenter making and repairing structures and fixtures from wood, from making wooden tables to the installation of kitchen cabinets for the need of any people in the village; a worker of manual labor who is usually looked down on when compared to people of mental work”; a man of a low social class with little respect from the others. The evidence is shown in the fact when Jesus came back to Nazareth, despite their praise to Jesus, people from that village did not show any great eargerness, talking to one another : “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?” and when they showed their disrespect and the rejection , Jesus said : “I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place.” (Lk 4,22.24).

Indeed, St. Joseph lived a life of  “a righteous man”  as mentioned in the Gospel in terms of not only trusting in God to follow His Commandments but also the spirit of self-denial in service to God as an unprofitable servant who just fulfills what is obliged to do.

On the contrary to St. Joseph’s spirit of a self-denying worker, nowadays, the focus on individual interests and benefits in the modern society leads to the unfair world with social inequality : the lack of equality of outcome, the lack of equality of access to opportunity,  the unequal distribution of income or wealth and other kinds of injustice. We can see evidently  the Covid-19 outbreak has become a chance for speculators to take advantage of to store hundreds of piles of facemasks, hand sanitizer gel, toilet papers, causing to the shortage and price hikes of these kinds of goods around the world regardless of the urgent need in all hospitals.

On the Feast Day of St. Joseph the Worker, we keep in our hearts and our prayers all kind-hearted workers and laborers in the world : nice and kind in their daily lives, choosing warm-hearted behaviors, caring and honest in labor work, sacrifice in daily work for the sake of the others. Let us pray for one another so that all of us, in all kinds and types of occupation in the society, humbly and self-sacrificingly work as faithful servants of God, the kind and loving Lord.

THE MARY FLOWER GARDEN IN MAY

(VƯỜN HOA THÁNG NĂM CỦA MẸ)

                                                 Author : Jorathe Nắng Tím

                                                    Translator : A. Prisca

At early dawn, Mother Mary starts her busy day to take care of her special flower garden.

         

Mother Mary really has a special love for this flower garden. It has been cleared up and built up by herself from a piece of abandoned land ragged with thorny bushes and big stumps that incompletely chopped and burnt.

            Looking at how she takes care of flowers and tends her own beds lets us know the heart-burning love she gives to this garden : the way she holds a hoe, the way she cultivates camellias, hyacinths, honeysuckle, gardenias, lilies, chrysanthemums, moon cactus,  morning glory, dogwood or roses, the way she lovingly tends the flowerbeds of rose arbor on the south lawn, the magical way she cherishes the Cherokee rose… A wide variety of flowers have been brought to be nourished with her deep appreciation of beauty in her gardern, whose paths form an ornate, looping design, cutting the beds into odd shaoed but organized patterns and in which there is a large wooden arbor at the center that is thick with yellow jasmine and honeysuckle.

          This garden is considered a heavy splendid treasure that she can never keeps far away; the garden in her heart is like a sweet-natured and gorgeous daughter she can never loses; there is no doubt that the garden is such a joyful pride for her.

           However, over the past few months, Mother Mary has been seen walking silently and contemplatively every morning in this garden and pondering sadly step by step back home every evening. Her heart has been severely hurt and her eyes have been filled with tears due to the bad happenings with her beautiful flowers : roses attacked by budworms, apricot blossoms attacked by bugs, orchid spikes lacking of some more sunshine… She has become more and more anxious and worried about her garden destroyed day by day and tries to find a way out to recover and maintain “her lovely and scented flower garden”.

          The above-mentioned garden, the Mary Flower Garden, is the Garden of humankind, in which every person is a beautiful flower tree, a delicate flower branch, a sweet and fresh unopened bud with a wide variety of vivid shiny colors and pleasant fragrances under Mother Mary’s loving care and protection.

          For the last few months, this Garden has been utterly destroyed by a virus named Corona as well as other deadly viruses which are much more dangerous than Corona, called “virus of selfisheness, virus of pompousness, virus of jealousy, virus of greed, virus of severe and bloody violence, virus of backbiting, virus of false accusations, virus of slander… etc… even the virus of insult to the Creator of the World. Recently, this Garden has become a bloody battlefield, a hospital without enough beds for patients, a giant mortuary, a cemetery with collective burial pits ; all those things have cut off the joy of flowers blooming at  dawn or the dancing flower branches in spring breeze and cheery sunshine and have lead to the terribly gloomy and desperately sad atmostphere over the garden.

           Consequently , we are confused about where to find such beautiful flowers of the world to offer Mother Mary this May as we do every year for you.  

          Nevetheless, when we are in the chaos amidst the Covid-19 Pandemic, Mother Mary has shown  us another flower garden, “The New Flower Garden of Mankind”, in which all flowers bloom from “thorny crown, iron nail, lance” of The Crucified Jesus : a bunch of flowes of “Self-Scacrificing and Self-Giving Love” of those who devotedly take care of patients with coronavirus confirmed infection in hospitals, a bunch of flowers of “Compassionate Love” of those who willingly to share food and necessary goods with the poor, the homeless or the marginalized; a banquet of flowes of  Humility in Love in voluntary service to the lowly, the elderly, the humble with all great respect; bushes of flowers of Hope and Love in continuing to support and build up a better world during the dark time of the pandemic.

          Additionally, Mother Mary herself takes us to “the flower garden of Jerusalem” to encounter Jesus, her son, when we get lost in our lives ; she herself takes us to “the flower garden of Cana” to make a request to Jesus for a strong faith during our challenging lives; she herself takes us to “the flower garden of Passion” to live the full life of Jesus’disicple and to help, to protect and to comfort us when we face our daily harhships, difficulties, challenges; she herself takes us to “the flower garden of Calvary”, in which “the flower of Salvation” is now in full bloom on the Crucifix; and finally, she herself takes us to meet with Jesus and introduce us to Him : “These are my beloved sons and daughters.”

         Mother Mary, during May of this year, we would like to offer you such scented and splendid Spiritual Flowers picked up from “The New Flower Garden of Mankind”, which you have taught us how to cultivate and nourish through “Trusting Love, Self-denial Love, Serving Love, Self-giving Love” in unity with “the Great Love to lay down one’s life for the one he loves” of Jesus , Son of God and your son , to make it “The lush and fruitful Flower Forest of Salvation” for humankind.