Page 10 - Reflections on St. Joseph
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OBLATI DI SAN GIUSEPPE
P. JAN PELCZARSKI, OSJ
SUPERIORE GENERALE
Message for the Opening of the Year of St. Joseph
To the Oblates of St. Joseph
and to the Josephite Marellian Family
Dear Confreres and Cooperators,
On the 19th of March we will celebrate the annual Solemnity of St. Joseph, Spouse of the Virgin
Mary. However, this year, the annual liturgical celebration will take on a very special meaning
for the Family of the Oblates, because it marks the opening of a Year dedicated to that Guardian
of the Redeemer, whose name we are proud to bear.
Our holy Founder chose St. Joseph as our Patron and exhorted us to keep him before our eyes
along the way of holiness and dedicated service to the Church. In the draft for a “Company of
St. Joseph”, he left us this precious directive: “Let each one take his inspiration from his Model,
St. Joseph, who was the first upon the earth to care for the interests of Jesus, he who cared for
Him as an infant and protected Him as a child and who had the place of a father for the first
thirty years of His earthly life.” (Letter 83).
The celebration of the 19th of March and especially of the Year of St. Joseph, as explained in the
Letter of Inauguration, offer us an occasion to re-discover the figure of our Patron in the
Universal Church, and to recognize in him the principle elements of that vocation which
associates us, as his Oblates, with his name. The Guardian of the Redeemer, model of the
interior life, is a reminder to us of the essentials and of the relevancy to us of some of those
values which, lately, may have been overlooked or forgotten.
One of the major challenges of our time is the integration of the interior life (prayer and
contemplation) and mission (apostolate and ministry). We always run the risk of remaining
enclosed in a spirituality isolated from reality, or of abandoning ourselves to frantic activity
and to the superficiality of material things. The Guardian of the Redeemer teaches us that an
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