Monday, March 20, 2006
On Saint Joseph
From Benedict's angelus address, translated and posted on Zenit:
His greatness, like Mary's, stands out even more because his mission was developed in humility and in the hiddenness of the house of Nazareth. Moreover, God himself, in the person of his incarnate Son, chose this way and style of life in his earthly existence. From the example of St. Joseph we all receive a strong invitation to develop with fidelity, simplicity and modesty the task that providence has assigned to us. I am thinking above all of fathers and mothers of families, and I pray that they will always be able to appreciate the beauty of a simple and industrious life, cultivating the conjugal relationship with care and fulfilling with enthusiasm the great and not easy educational mission.
The liturgical feast is celebrated today. Our vicar general incurred the wrath of parish Italian women yesterday, however. At 7:30 Mass, he mentioned that the feast was transferred to Monday.
Now, except for you liturgy geeks out there, what do you think of when someone says the feast is transferred?
Right. Of course you do.
Needless to say, the spit hit the fan. I was told in no uncertain terms to "correct" the VG and ensure the announcement welcomed everybody back to church for food, served eleven to seven.
Maybe a few people had the mistaken notion that our St Joseph Table festivities had been "transferred" to Monday. Hopefully no obedient but un-liturgical souls were steered to church today, where they would encounter a darkened building bereft of good Italian eats.
And I mean literally darkened: we had a power outage on our campus today. Very weird. One bank of electric votive lights were on, but there was no sound system or overhead lights. Our school had lighting in the auditorium/cafeteria, but nothing in classrooms and hallways.
Anyway, wish me a happy feast day, if you would. My baptismal name was Joseph. If there were a feast of Joseph the Dreamer, I would adopt it.
