Page 121 - Reflections on St. Joseph

In the Bible, the sign of interiority is the heart, seat of the will and of decision. St. Peter uses an
insightful image when he speaks of “the hidden man of the heart” (1Pt 3,4) and St. Paul
contrasts the interior man with the exterior man (2Cor 4,16-18).

Interiority is a theme throughout the Christian tradition. Taking up the ancient admonition:
“Know yourself ”, which draws together into an invitation to reflect upon the meaning of life,
the interior life examines what you are living on the outside and asks essential questions: who
am I? From where do I come? Where am I going? What is the meaning of what I do? Who are
others to me? Only by means of interiorizing can we become “subjects” of our lives. (E. Bianchi).
St. Augustine wrote: “Do not go out of yourself, go into yourself: truth lives in the depths of
man”.

2. The Interior Life today

In contemporary society, based on the cult of appearances and activity, many are living focused
outwards, continuously searching for exterior stimulation and novelties. In the studies
focusing on the current condition of man you will notice the appearance of an interior
emptiness which leads to the search for compensations in the abusive use of drugs, alcohol,
games or in dependency on the internet and social media in general. You discover interior
fragmentation that needs to recompose itself. You find paths that distance man from a
relationship with himself and move the center of the person to exterior things. You uncover, in
the end, the attempt to forget interior unwellness brought about by the loss of a sense of the
transcendent in human life.

The psychiatrist Vittorio Andreoli, in his book L’uomo di superficie (The Superficial Man) speaks
of our civilization as directed towards the outside, living an institutionalized evasion,
everything being reduced to what you see and what attracts you, and therefore little by little
canceling out our interiority. To this can be added a further fact, evident to many: the
disappearance of silence, held to be unnatural and superfluous. Thus the principal problem of
man today is his lacerated heart, which has lost the essential element of life: interiority, the
reality which offers meaning, inspiration and the motivation to conscious existence, and which
is the privileged place of encounter with God.

3. St. Joseph of Nazareth and the Interior Life

So as to avoid misunderstanding, it is important to remember that St. Joseph is not a theologian
in the literal sense of the word, one who has given himself to the theoretical study of the interior
life and its implications in relationship to the Absolute. Neither is he a cloistered monk who left
us a diary of his soul from which to draw, so as to know the path to follow in search of God.

Apart from all this, the Apostolic Exhortation Redemptoris Custos speaks of the “interior profile
of this figure” (n. 25) and of his “limitless depth of interior life” (ibid.). He lives in daily contact
with the mystery “hidden from the ages” and which “dwelled” under the roof of his house (ibid).
The text of the Apostolic Exhortation does not fail to emphasize that precisely due to the
limitless depth of his interior life, marked by daily contact with the mystery of the Incarnate
Word, he receives the most singular orders and comforts, and from him comes the logic and the
strength of great decisions, that belongs to pure and simple souls. (RC 26).

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