An obedience of faith... working in love

Ora et Labora

The feast of St Joseph this year is transferred to the following day, since the liturgy of the Third Sunday of Lent takes precedence. This in a way is an illustration of his whole life being a shining example of humble and faithful response to God’s design. His response was no less than the perfect fulfilment of this design by his spouse, the Virgin Mary. It took deep and daring faith for him to accept and carry out what the Angel Gabriel disclosed to him regarding the extraordinary event of God’s design to enter our ordinary world (cf. Mt 1:18ff.). But, Joseph of Nazareth was an extraordinarily ordinary human being whose response to the heavenly envoy’s message expresses what the Apostle Paul summarized as an obedience of faith... working in love (cf. Rom 1:5; 16:26; Eph 4:15f.).

     Many recent popes, especially St John Paul II in his Apostolic Exhortation on St Joseph, recommend following this holy man, whose response shows how to live fully, to carry out – that is, realise in practice - Jesus’ teaching regarding the essence of divine worship, which consists in being adorers in spirit and truth, whom the Father seeks (cf. Jn 4:23f.). Living worship embraces both prayer and work. It is the interior disposition or spirit enlivening each of these components of human life.

Joseph of Nazareth in this respect can be regarded as a model of the Benedictine motto: “ora et labora" ("pray and work"), which became the hallmark of action flowing from contemplation, or rather, action permeated by a contemplative looking to God, that is strikingly indicated in the lives of saints like Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila, Peter-Julian Eymard and, within living memory, Theresa of Calcutta. Apart from these splendidly illustrious examples of holiness, countless lay persons persevere in living their prayer, like St Joseph, in the hidden and unknown ways of the service they provide for their families. Many housebound elderly persons or those who are disabled or infirm have the privileged vocation of offering their sufferings patiently, trustingly and resiliently in prayer with the deep conviction that nothing can separate them from the love of Christ, who even after enduring his passion continues now at the Father’s right hand to intercede for all people, especially those in distressing situations (cf. Rom 8:35; Heb 7:25).

Finely sensitive to the lonely path of sufferings that so many people have to travel, Caryll Houselander, that somewhat eccentric bespeckled English mystic, perceived Christ’s passion continuing in the terrible disturbance to the lives of many during the fierce bombing of London in the Second World War. She pointed to St Joseph as that saint to whom all can turn for encouragement. She says, although he is quite misrepresented by those plaster “grey-beard statues of him that we are used to, and drugged by,” he was a person of sterling courage and quiet strength, “who accepted hardship and danger, and renounced self to protect the little and the weak.” His only concern was how to save and shelter Mary from the world: “He, like those who cherish the life of an infant, had to give up all that he had in order to give himself.” She states elsewhere that in virtue of having in common those two qualities, love and trust, which spring from an interior spirit of prayerfulness, Joseph and Mary were empowered to do the smallest, insignificant things extraordinarily well.

On the occasion of the feast of St Joseph, therefore, it is appropriate to reflect on the profound implications of the motto of the rich Benedictine tradition - ora et labora. For, in this is rediscovered the basis of our whole cultural heritage in Western society, which Blessed Pope Paul VI recalled to its roots of becoming a “civilisation of love.” This radical basis in a calm balanced way presents the kernel of Christian spirituality, which has its focus oriented towards mystical union with God the Father through, with and in the Spirit of Christ. The balanced perspective of this basis gives priority to neither prayer nor work; in other words, it does not overemphasise contemplation over action or vice versa.

But, rather, insofar as human existence comprises contemplation and action, a balanced approach of Christian spirituality to these two fundamental aspects of truly living humanly in the world recognises the due importance of each, holds them in proper proportion as complementary to one another, and maintains them in harmonious tension, rather than seeing them as separate from each other. What binds them together is love. This is beautifully illustrated by St Paul’s image of the reciprocal interaction of members of the Christian community. The eye of faith (contemplation), thus, does not look down, askance, at the foot or the hands of Christ’s Body, but each respects the other as needed for the proper function of the whole (cf. 1 Cor 12:14ff.).

The contemplative dimension must be present in every member of Christ’s body, whose activities of every kind are illumined by its gentle light. Likewise, the worth of human activity must be respected by contemplatives. The intrinsic harmonious reciprocity of action and contemplation constitutes the overall life of worship, which glorifies God and at the same time realises humankind’s salvation. In the concise expression of the second century Father of the Church, St Irenaeus of Lyons: “The glory of God is human beings fully alive; human life is the vision of God.”

To return briefly to where these reflections began, it seems highly appropriate to celebrate the feast of St Joseph in Lent. Although the characteristic of this season is penitential, the penitential or ascetical aspects of the works of Lent – fast, abstinence and service of others through almsgiving – become transformed and elevated to the level of authentic mysticism as they are united in the mysteries of faith through prayer in-deed, Christ’s “work of redemption” that we enact in an obedience of faith... working in love. The humble life of the Carpenter of Nazareth simply shows us how in whatever we do it is possible as well to pray always without ceasing (cf. 1 Thess 5:17; Eph 6:).

Our real business, by not becoming swamped and smothered in a flurry of futile busyness, is to do God’s “will on earth as it is in heaven,” in the way the Lord Jesus taught us to pray. Moreover, by uniting all our actions and especially ourselves with Christ’s total sacrifice of himself to the Father, we carry out his command, or rather, invitation to offer the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, that is, the supreme Eucharistic action of contemplative communion. Thus, as St Paul encourages, our grand task is “to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom 12:1).

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Image above: The Joseph Portal  by Antoni Gaudí
First quarter of the 20th century, carved in stone
East façade, Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família, Barcelona.

On the left is the Flight into Egypt, on the right the Slaughter of the Innocents.