Today is the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, and as we begin the month of May, we also honor our Blessed Mother in special ways throughout the next 4 weeks.
What many virtues they can teach us! St. Francis de Sales highlights the example of this most holy couple by pointing out their serenity in the midst of both joys and sorrows. He said, “We must consider the great peace and serenity of mind of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph, shown in their constancy amid all the unexpected events which befell them.”
Many unexpected events- and don’t these befall all of us too?
St. Francis de Sales advises:
“We must repeat over and over again to ourselves, so as the better to impress the truth upon our minds, that no inequality of events must ever carry away our hearts and minds into inequalities of temper; for unevenness of temper proceeds from no other source than our passions, inclinations, or unmortified affections. These must have no power with us whenever they incite us to do, to omit, or to desire anything however small, which is contrary to what the dictates of reason urge us to do or leave undone in order to please God.
What did Our Mother and her Spouse encounter? We are reminded:
“The great St. Chrysostom says : O man, you who are so much disquieted because all things do not succeed according to your wishes, are you not ashamed to see that what you want was not to be found in the family of Our Lord ?
Consider, I pray you, the vicissitudes and changes, and alternations of joy and sorrow, which are to be met with there.
Our Lady received the tidings that she should conceive of the Holy Ghost a Son, Who should be Our Lord and Saviour. What joy, what jubilation for her in that sacred hour of the Incarnation of the Eternal Word !
Shortly afterwards St. Joseph,seeing that she was with child and knowing that it was not by him, Alas ! into what affliction, into what distress was he not plunged ! And Our Lady,what an extremity of grief and pain did she not feel in her soul, seeing her dear husband on the point of quitting her, her modesty not permitting her to reveal to St. Joseph the honour and the grace withwhich God had favoured her !
Then a little later,this storm having passed over, because the angel had discovered to St. Joseph ‘ the secret of thismystery, what consolation did they not receive !”
Source; Conferences of St Francis de Sales, Conference 3