Page 30 - Reflections on St. Joseph

which will make everything clear. In the awareness that his story cannot be a mistake,
he takes this woman... bestows the name...flees to Egypt....returns from Egypt...goes to
Galilee... Joseph each time will be called to enter into his mission - that which God has
given to him.

It is here that each of us finds his possible evolution, growth and maturity. Either life is
the boundary between the visible and the invisible, despite being right in the middle of a
pandemic, between fear and disappointment but still with the awareness that God is
behind things; or, history is a simple coming together of cause and effect that become
inevitable.

Joseph will not be a spouse and father based on himself, but according to God. According
to the pedagogy of God. Entering time after time into the plan of God.

We are in the world, but not of the world, because we are of God. Our experience invites
us to see the Christian life not as something commercial, of just good duties and good
feelings, which in a certain sense secure a presumed status quo, distancing the tragic
from reality. To recognize, to re-discover the deeper sense of life means, most of the time,
to specifically pass through the tragic so as to uncover the seed of salvation. Christians
will not receive a call to normality. St. Joseph will become a father and spouse in a way
that is so far from normal. Nothing is the same if you live it as children of God.

History is to be read by means of the invisible, otherwise it will remain purely horizontal.
We will always be between remaining mediocre or entering into greatness. Thus it is
important to remain on the boundary between the human and the divine.

The instability, caused by the pandemic, in every level of society, and the even more felt
experience of disintegration, has brought to each of us the realization of our helplessness.
This is certainly something sad, tragic, but still not to be unappreciated or dismissed. The
experience of not being masters of our times and of our story has decisively placed
everyone before the possibility of discerning how better to live this present moment, this
moment given to us a gift. It is the possibility of embracing, dealing with, living reality,
our own sufferings, our problems: either to weep over ourselves or enter into this
experience and live it as a chance to meet God.

If you do not open your heart, you will not see these things. “May it happen to me
according to your Word.” (Lk 1,38). “Rising from sleep, he did as the Angel had told him”
(Mt 1,24). In some way, the work of God passes through us. The possibilities are always
two: remain closed, inert, firmly entrapped in our own horizon, in our own anxiety, or
allow God to enter, who through events realizes His working. To each is given the chance
to say yes or no.

The danger into which a Christian may fall today is to hold that prayer, faith, personal
relationship with God is some form of “insurance” against misfortune. The experience
of Joseph of Nazareth helps us to re-formulate our prayer: not deliver us from the
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6 Reflections on st. joseph