There are many saints to whom God has given the power to assist us in the necessities of life, but the power given to St. Joseph is unlimited: It extends to all our needs, and all those who invoke him with confidence are sure to be heard. ~ St. Thomas Aquinas
My novena to St Joseph ended yesterday. His feast day, the 19th of March, falling on a Sunday this year, is celebrated today. As I write this, dark clouds have been gathering in my heart since a phone call this afternoon. Although I know that no word from my heart escapes St Joseph, fear finds me today.
My faith in St Joseph is an odd one. Not borne out by many quickly answered prayers, it’s a faith built upon something deeper and less understood, even by me. Perhaps, this is best expressed by St Joseph himself. Some years ago, I was journeying with a cousin who was facing marriage difficulties. The situation was desperate and there was little hope. I strongly encouraged my cousin to seek St Joseph’s help because I had a feeling it had come to the end of the road for me, that there was nothing more I could do to help her. To my chagrin, she resisted.
And then I heard St Joseph’s voice, clearly, in my spirit,
I am your journey, not hers.
St Joseph was telling me then, as he is even now, that I need to keep the eyes of my heart on the journey. That it is not as much the final answer to prayer as much as it is the walk.
I don’t know what lies in store in the days and weeks to come. I do know that after failing to get some much needed hope today, I am deeply troubled, fearful that things will not work out the way we are desperately hoping for. Yet, in a way I cannot explain, I also suspect it is St Joseph who never feared to do the impossible, who has come this Lent to tell me I should no longer be a slave to fear. That is he who brought the words of the song for me ahead of time knowing that my hopes in man will be thwarted today and that I will fall into worry once more.
How do I do this, St Joseph? I ask. How do I break this new manacle of fear?
In immediate reply comes the lines from today’s Reading,
He believed, hoping against hope…
That is why it was credited to him as righteousness. ~ Romans 4: 18, 22
Hope is the antidote to fear.