A month has since passed since the closing of the Year of St. Joseph, and I am left with a tremendous sense of gratitude for this unexpected gift of the church.
Like many, I read and followed Father Donald Calloway’s Consecration to St. Joseph and came to discover and love Joseph in a way I could never have anticipated. And over the past two semesters of seminarian formation, I also found in Joseph a crucial formator for the priesthood.
Through Joseph, the Lord has deepened my desire to grow in his self-sacrificing humility and obedience to the Father’s will. Joseph has instilled in me a growing desire to love, protect and defend the Holy Family and Holy Mother Church in a way that I could describe as not just fatherly, but spousal. The words from St. Peter Julian Eymard’s consecration prayer still echo in my daily prayers, reminding me to remain close to Joseph, “I shall honor, love and serve you with Mary, my mother, and never shall I separate her name from yours.”
As we in the Arlington diocese enter this new year with its catechetical focus on the real presence of the Eucharist, we are presented with another opportunity to build on our devotion to St. Joseph. We can turn toward Joseph as the exemplar and perfect teacher to help us become more fervent adorers of our Eucharistic Lord. Father Calloway identifies one of Joseph’s 10 Wonders as “Adorer of Christ,” noting St. Peter Julian Eymard’s spiritual insight, “We find in (St. Joseph) the perfect adorer, entirely consecrated to Jesus, working always near Jesus, giving Jesus his virtues, his time, his very life; it is thus that he is our model and our inspiration.”
Our seminary rector, Msgr. Andrew Baker, frequently asks us, “Gentlemen, are you living your holy hour?” This question is significant in that it challenges us to make sure that our time spent with the Lord leads us to a greater intimacy with him in a way that is fully integrated with the rest of our spiritual and temporal lives, rather than serving as merely a refuge from the world and rest from our daily temporal responsibilities.
St. Joseph lived in perpetual adoration of Jesus. Father though he was to him, Joseph first recognized Jesus as son of God and savior of the world. Amid all his responsibilities rearing and raising the son of God in preparation for his salvific mission, Joseph pondered in awe the mystery of this divine child who continuously offered himself as a total self-gift to the Holy Family. While Joseph would never feed on the real presence of Christ, he was continuously fed by the incarnate presence and life of the Word made flesh.
As we seek to build a church of true adorers, we should echo St. Peter Julian Eymard’s call, “We must beg for good adorers; the Blessed Sacrament needs them to replace St. Joseph and to imitate his life of adoration.”
Lewandowski, who is from St. Francis de Sales Church in Purcellville, is in his first year of theology at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md.
