Joseph, Husband of Mary

Today is the Feast of St Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Mother. 

During breakfast this morning, I was reading the morning devotion to my children from the Magnificat.  My children were all silent, then one said… “ I think she is crying.”  I was... 

Heather King, author, speaker, and blogger,  wrote the piece that touched me so dearly.  She gave me permission to post it; to share this wisdom.  Thank you Heather!  Here goes.

 

MARCH 2013: JOSEPH, HUSBAND OF MARY, Tuesday, March 1

By: Heather King

 

"As a child, when my father was worried, I was worried. There were eight of us kids and, like him, I took every family crisis and wasted penny personally.

One night at supper, as happened often, we ran out of milk. "I'll get some more," little  Ross offered, and made for the kitchen. Right away, Dad started in. “Don’t drop the milk.” “For Crimey’s sake, don’t drop the milk” “Watch out Ross, whatever you do, don’t drop the milk.”

Almost inevitably, just as Ross was about to reach the table, he dropped the milk. Milk pooled on the floor. Milk runneled into the kitchen. A stricken, defeated look crossed my father’s face. And then, trembling, he bent over and silently buried his head in his hands.

Had we made Dad cry? Had we pushed him over the brink at last? Mom couldn't leave. But what if Daddy, fount of all fun, all jokes, all food, shelter, clothing, security, order, warmth, bolted?
Finally my father straightened up. His beat-up hands dropped to his knees. He was still trembling. His face was wet with tears. But finally we realized he wasn’t crying. He was laughing.

Daddy had laughed. For a moment, all was right with the world. But in a way, I am still sitting at that table with my father. Sitting with him on one side and my mother on the other, sensing while being too young to know the tension that resides at the center of even the best of marriages. Sitting with him knowing that when and if he lifted his head his family, his glory and his cross, was going to be looking back at him: waiting, bereft. Sitting with him as he perhaps contemplated the years stretching ahead: of waking in the dark; of standing in the bitter cold and scorching heat all day laying brick, of constant anxiety, constant frustration, constant fatigue. Sitting with him while, on some terrible battlefield in which our fates hung in the balance, all that was good and kind and decent in him, and all that was fearful and weak and in pain had perhaps met.

That silence is the silence of St. Joseph who, in the Gospels, never utters a single word. St. Joseph the husband of Mary who chose his family, again and again, over himself.  Who chose humor—for what good husband and father doesn’t have a sense of humor?—over despair, over death. Who today resists the advances of the attractive young girl at work though sorely tempted, who lets his wife take credit for the kids, who stays instead of bolting which is hard and has always been hard and always will be hard. We say Mary is humble but perhaps the only person more humble, more burdened, less thanked, was Joseph.

In a way, that is who I write for: St. Joseph, and all husbands like him. For my father, in that moment before he lifted his head—and stayed."

To find Heather King online, click here.

My husband is my best friend, a gift from God and I thank God for him daily. He works so hard for all of us.  

I wanted to share this, so that we might all take a moment to thank God, for our husbands. Also, to remind us to hold him up in prayer.

St Joseph, pray for us!