Page 34 - Reflections on St. Joseph

Further, consider: as part of all this, it is His will that religious families be founded as part
of that work of sanctification. God’s is the inspiration that launches it. He chooses the
Founder to whom the work is entrusted. He is the one who cultivates the family and invites
others to join. He constitutes its charism and makes it a pathway of holiness and service
to the Kingdom. He makes it fruitful to each of those invited to the family, so that can
arrive at and lead others to, that life of Heaven.

God’s invitation to each of us is individual and personal, and each of us has perceived it in
a unique way. It is an invitation to become part of a specific religious family. That
invitation from God is accompanied by the particular graces and gifts that will be needed.
That invitation envisions the contributions to the individuals themselves and that they
themselves will make as they embrace the calling. That invitation is also a family
invitation, for it calls the family to embrace the individual. Their calling is empowered and
sustained alongside others likewise called – that is God’s design. The fulfillment of this
plan for individuals, for the family for the Kingdom is only and always together and it will
lead to a communion to be enjoyed eternally. All of this can only be known and embraced
and lived by faith.

Our own personal faith is what allows us to perceive the fullness of the reality in which we
live and which goes beyond our senses. It allows us to reach the God who is Lord of all
things and know Him personally. Our faith shows us our place in all that God plans and
disposes.

Our own personal faith leads to understanding: finding meanings of love, goodness and
providential accomplishment in all this; comprehending the workings of the Lord in the
experiences of sin, grace, mercy, redemption that we are immersed in; and knowing our
place in it all, why we are here, what we are to do, how we are to do it and where we are
going.

Our personal faith leads us to respond to what is perceived and understood. We hear and
listen to what God is showing us and telling us. We embrace His call and become a member
of a family – the Oblates of St. Joseph. We commit ourselves to the efforts to be a servant
of the Lord and an active member of the family. We persevere with dedication in realizing
what the Lord has invited us to. We ultimately achieve our God-given earthly tasks and
our eternal destiny personally and as a member of the family.

Is this not what lies at the core of that “hidden life” of St. Joseph? A man whose personal
faith, lying unseen but real and powerful, within the depths of his soul, sees and
understands and then commits to what the great and invisible God he worships asks of
him? Only by faith can we begin to enter in the mystery of the man whom God, through
the inspiration of our Holy Founder, proposes to us as the model of our lives. It is by his
own profound faith, tested, deepened, enduring, that Joseph is the ready hearer of a divine
call and a dedicated accomplisher of the task - to bring Jesus to us all.

10 Reflections on st. joseph