Friday of the Third Week of Easter & St. Joseph The Worker

The readings today speak to us of two Sacraments and their importance in our lives as followers of Our Lord. The first reading is the account of the dramatic conversion of St. Paul, an event that began the spread of Christianity throughout the ancient world. I would like to concentrate though on Paul’s baptism which is recounted after he is sent to Ananias. Paul who had been blinded by intense light when he heard the voice of Jesus, is told by Ananias that he will regain his sight and more importantly he will be “filled with the Holy Spirit” by the sacrament of Baptism. Indeed this is exactly what takes place within Paul as “things like scales fell from his eyes and he began at once to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues that he is the Son of God”. Paul would be empowered by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the Gospel throughout Asia Minor and Greece, even to Rome itself. Psalm 117 expresses this concept beautifully.

In John’s Gospel Jesus scandalizes his listeners during a pre- passion sermon by telling them that they will achieve eternal life by eating His Flesh and drinking His Blood, citing the story of God’s gift of Manna to the desert-wandering Israelites during the time of Moses. Of course, Our Lord is trying to tell the crowds that He will establish the sacrament of Holy Eucharist which will be His physical and spiritual presence on earth after He is ascended. Both of these readings show us that it is through these two sacraments, and indeed all the sacraments, that Jesus remains with us who have not had the benefit of actually seeing His Bodily Form when He was here on earth. These sacraments give us grace which hopefully also empowers us to “Go out to all the world and tell the Good News”.

I also must mention that May 1st is one of the feast days of my patron saint, St Joseph the Worker. I have endeavored to model my life on the foster father of Our Lord. The Gospels do not tell us a lot about Joseph but it is obvious that God selected this humble, dedicated man to be the guardian of His Son. Indeed Jesus followed St Joseph's profession of carpenter, probably working side by side with His foster father until the age of 30 when He began His ministry of Redemption. The Gospel for this feast day tells us that Jesus once again scandalized His listeners in His hometown Nazareth synagogue because he dared to teach them of His intimate knowledge of the Father and the Kingdom of Heaven. These Nazarenes could not accept that the son of their humble hometown carpenter could be anything but a simple Nazarene himself. The first two readings (there are two options for the first reading) describe Joseph's dedicated work ethic and humble obedience to God's will through analogy to God's creative work in the Book of Genesis and St Paul's description of a humble servant of Jesus in Colossians. Truly St Joseph is a model for us as we strive to answer God’s call.

Joe Grau