St. Joseph Sought and Did Only the Will of God
3 min • Digitized on September 3, 2021
From St. Joseph’s Life, Virtues, Privileges, Power, page 354
By Very Rev. Archdeacon Kinane, P.P.
“An Angel of the Lord appeared in sleep to Joseph, saying: Arise and take the child and his mother and fly into Egypt … Who arose and took the child and his mother by night, and retired into Egypt. … An Angel of the Lord appeared in sleep to Joseph in Egypt, saying: Arise and take the child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel … Who arose and took the child and his mother and came into the land of Israel” (Matt. ii. 13-21).
“Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven” (Matt. vi. 10): “This is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thess. iv. 3).
Reflect that the highest order of sanctity consists in doing the holy will of God.
In heaven above, the Saints and Angels know no higher perfection than hanging on the nod of God, and doing His blessed will.
Hence our Divine Redeemer has taught us to pray to the Eternal Father in these words: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” And He Himself declares: “I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me” (John, vi. 38).
In His sorrow and anguish, even “unto death,” in the garden of Gethsemani, when the green grass beneath the olive-trees was purpled by the Blood of Redemption, our loving Saviour thus prayed: “My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt” (Matt. xxv. 39).
St. Paul, converted into a “vessel of election” by the grace and very presence of Jesus Christ Himself, cried out: “Lord, what wilt Thou have me do” (Acts, ix. 6). To know and do the will of God was the first prayer of the Apostle of the Gentiles. In like manner the prayer of the Royal Psalmist to God was, ““each me to do thy will” (Ps. cxlii. 9).
How beautiful and sublime the prayer of holy Job in the darkest midnight of his abandonment, humiliation, and sufferings! “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither; the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, as it hath pleased the Lord, so it is done: blessed be the name of the Lord” (i. 21).
St. Teresa justly concludes: “All that he who practises prayer should seek is to conform his will to the Divine Will; and let him be assured that in this consists the highest perfection.”
“The perfection of love,” concludes St. Alphonsus Liguori, “consists in conformity to the Divine Will.”
No wonder, therefore, that our great Patriarch, St. Joseph, was prompt and ready to obey the whispers of God’s Angels. The life of St. Joseph was to watch, to know, and to do the will of Jesus Christ, his Lord and Saviour.