By Father Rich Tomkosky
In these final few days before Christmas, let ask the Lord to help us truly to spend this next bit of time in quiet reflection, deeper prayer, and acts of charity/self-denial in order to give ourselves more fully to Him on Christmas day and beyond.
Do we have great trust in the Lord, or is there a lack of trust in all honesty? As we hear in the book of the Prophet Isaiah, we humans weary God with our lack of trust. Jesus reminds Saint Faustina of that over and over in the Divine Mercy messages (see The Diary of Divine Mercy). God wants us to ask Him for what we need. Yes, it is true: He knows what we need before we ask Him but wants us to be part of the process of growing in holiness, so He desires us to ask Him in humble prayer. TRUSTING in the Lord’s love is the foundation for that.
As a corollary to the virtue of trust, Saint Paul calls us to the virtue of having an ever more obedient faith in the Lord. The true test of our obedience to the Lord and His will — as manifested to us objectively through our Catholic faith and subjectively through our personal relationship with the Lord — is how we deal with spiritual darkness, anxiety, trials and suffering (see all the writings of Saint John of the Cross – Feast on December 14). These trials and sufferings and spiritual darknesses can come through: our family and work situations, through our personal struggles with sin, weakness, and frailty, or just from the fact that we live in a fallen, sinful world with people that to a greater or lesser degree have not fully embraced the grace of Redemption that Christ won for us on the Cross.
The call to grow in holiness is a daily battle, sometimes of monumental proportions! But always remember the grace is there to do so! The sufferings and challenges of this life are the tools God uses to mold us into saints. How else can God form us in obedience and trust and holy patience except under the chisel of suffering? To change our all too often slothful weakened wills, darkened minds, and hardened hearts into a reflection of His goodness, truth and beauty. It is a painstaking process, but leads to humility, self-discipline and most of all charity which is the very reflection of God’s own being.
All I have said so far is exhibited in a beautiful way in the life of Saint Joseph, the foster-father of Jesus and the husband of Mary. Saint Joseph is a model for us of trust, humility, and obedient faith in the Lord and His often-mysterious designs for our lives.
Try to put yourself in his shoes. He, in all likelihood, experienced the thoughts and emotions of confusion, anxiety, worry, sorrow, possibly anger, and most of all temptations against trust when he finds out Mary is pregnant with a child, and he has NO IDEA how this came about! But what does He do? Does he flip out? Attack Mary and her character? No!! From the Gospel account, he steps back, takes sufficient time to reflect and intensely prays; and as a result, God rewards his TRUST in Him by giving him a dream in which the TRUTH of Mary’s pregnancy is made known to Saint Joseph. It was indeed through the power of the Holy Spirit that Mary is pregnant with the baby Jesus! Joseph awakens and does what the Angel in the dream commanded him. What a beautiful example of trust in the Lord!
Let’s ask Saint Joseph to help us to do the same in our lives, in ways big and small, to always step back, reflect, pray, and entrust all to the Lord! Our lives are not without a plan or meaning; all the struggles and sufferings, the dark moments and times of confusion are steppingstones leading us closer to God if only we abandon all to Him in trust. Everything is in His Providential care, and nothing happens in our lives without God ordaining it or permitting it for our eternal Good (see Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans, chapter 8).
As we move toward Christmas day, may each of us resolve to trust God more, be more obedient in faith, and cultivate a greater devotion to Saint Joseph in our lives, to take care of any problems quietly in the Lord, and make the next good step toward deeper union with the Blessed Trinity; as he is the protector of the Holy Church of God, and the saint whom we turn to, in trust, asking for the special grace of a provided death (receiving worthily the last Sacraments of the Church), so that someday each of us may die a holy death in the loving arms of the Holy Family.
Saint Joseph, pray for us. God bless you.
Father Rich Tomkosky is the Pastor of Saint Thomas the Apostle Parish in Bedford and the Pastor of Seven Dolors of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish in Beans Cove.
