About the 'Josephs' in Jesus' life and death

For as long as I can remember, I have had a deep love for St. Joseph..
As a character in the story of Jesus, he must surely rank as second only in importance to Our Blessed Lady, and yet so quiet, so totally unassuming.

What a task he was entrusted with and how brilliantly he carried it out! God knew who to choose. We can imagine his strong, proud and loving arms holding the newborn baby, Jesus, handed to him by the joyful mother.

We can assume that Jesus was taught the intricacies of carpentry at the knee of his foster father. We can also assume that he had died before Jesus began his public ministry because there is no mention of him in that phase of Jesus' life.

For this reason, he has been known, traditionally, as the patron saint of a happy death, flanked, as he must have been, by Jesus and Mary, on his way to his eternal reward and ever-lasting happiness.

And then, there is that other Joseph, of Arimathea, who chose to take responsibility for Jesus after his crucifixion, placing that precious body in a new grave, one which he had prepared for himself.

What a wonderful gesture that was. He knew the treasure which he and Nicodemus held in their arms, taken from those other, desolate, arms of the heartbroken mother. How aptly named; one Joseph to hold and care for him in his life, the other, in his death.

Joseph of Arimathea must surely have been a man of privilege to have had this grave and yet he was prepared to surrender it to a man who had just suffered an ignominious death, alongside common criminals.

But, as we know, the stone which had sealed it so completely, was moved away, the grave was empty. It was still available to the man who had given it away.

One day, Joseph would have been buried there as he had originally intended, in the tomb which had held the initially lifeless, then resurrected body of the Son of God.. How well-deserved was that!

Perhaps we can learn from this that, if we open up the empty and unused spaces within our hearts and minds to allow Jesus to occupy them, we will find that we have lost nothing and gained everything.

About praying on the days when you can't pray 'well'

These are my prayers on days like these.

"Oh God, you are my God.
Oh God, you are my God." (Psalm 62)

Help me, God. Help me, God.

Thank you, God. Thank you, God.

Sorry, God. Sorry, God.

Praise you, God. Praise you, God.

God, help us. God help us.

I find it helps.

About clinging on to God

All through my life, I've clung on to God,
sometimes, just by my fingertips.

Week in, week out,
even as a student, away from home for the first time,
young, stupid and fancy-free,
I've gone to Mass.

Somehow, I've always known that God will hold me fast
and keep me safe.

And so it has been.

About finding and giving love

God says,
"Come to me to find love
and then you will be able to go to others
to give love."

About being 'our brother's keeper'

In answer to the question,
"Am I my brother's keeper?"
(Cain to God, after having actually killed his brother) (Gen 4),
well no, 
but we are called to care about,
and sometimes for, 
our brothers, and our sisters,
because they are the neighbours 
that we are called upon to love as ourselves.

NB Sometimes 'caring' is doing something
and sometimes 'caring' is doing nothing!!
Let's hope we learn to recognise which is which.

About finding happiness at the altar of Giod

Only at the altar of God will we find true happiness.
God says, "Come to my altar to find love for yourselves,
and from there, you will be able to take love to others.

Honestly, there is no other real way,
no matter what the world may tell or sell us.

About having a letter published in the Catholic Herald, concerning hymns at Mass

One of the proudest moments of my life occurred on Sunday, 20th December, 2015. As we came out of Mass, our priest made some comment about my having had a letter published in the above magazine!
I hadn't even looked so I rushed home to scour the pages and there it was. I read and re-read it in a state of disbelief, excitement and euphoria. I might just have been awarded the Nobel prize for Literature. There it was, "COMMENT OF THE WEEK" even!!
I had sent the email a few weeks before and had tentatively looked each week, never really expecting to see it on the letters page (but inwardly hoping/dreaming, of course, that I would) and had given up actually expecting it.
I had been raging about the topic to someone who said, "Well why don't you write." So I wrote, revised and sent and here it is. The by-line was, "I can't do without the four-hymn sandwich" which I didn't particularly like but refers to the cause of my rage, which I tried to tone down for the sake of showing myself in a reasonable light, I hoped.

SIR - As a life-long lover of my Catholic faith and practice, and of music and singing in general and hymns in particular, the letter headlined "Save us from the four-hymn sandwich" (November 13), which seeks to "do away with" the said item, upsets me greatly.
  In many places in the Scriptures we are exhorted to sing our praises to God. For nearly 18 years I have helped the children, aged from four to to eleven, at our local primary school to learn hymns for Mass, from "Love is something if you give it away" to "The Angel Gabriel from Heaven came" (One child came to tell me that her favourite line was "his wings as drifted snow, his eyes of flame"!)
  Many of the children leave the hall singing as they go. I hope and pray that most of them will, as I have, remember those words throughout their lives, even if, sadly, the majority of them stop going to church.
  There are beautiful hymns with beautiful words and melodies, both old and new. They allow us, the 'foot soldiers of the faith', to participate in the Mass in a way that nothing else does. Why would anyone wish to to take that away from us? If my family do not have Soul of my Saviour and Lord of all Hopefulness at my funeral, I'll be back to haunt them!

I only wish that I had added a postscript to the effect that I have left them a short-list for the other two hymns. Maybe, one day, I'll post that. Oh I do love a good hymn!