Mar 30 Mon - How can I become more united with God?

 

Mar 30 Mon
How can I become more united with God?

Recently, Pope Leo talked to a group of young priests on the sacrament of penance. 

“The fact that the Sacrament of Reconciliation can be received repeatedly is not always matched by a willingness on the part of the baptized to make use of it: it is as though the infinite treasure of the Church’s mercy remained 'unused’. Some Christians, not infrequently, remain in a state of sin for a long time, rather than approaching the confessional with simplicity of faith and heart to receive the gift of the Risen Lord."

“The law of the Church establishes that every Christian is obliged to make a sacramental confession at least once a year, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, following the Second Vatican Council, confirmed this norm."

“Saint Augustine affirms: One who confesses his sins, and accuses them, begins to work with God. God accuses your sins: and if you also accuse, you are united to God. To recognize our sins means ‘being in harmony’ with God, uniting ourselves with Him.”

“The Sacrament of Reconciliation is thus a 'workshop of unity’: it restores unity with God through the forgiveness of sins and the infusion of sanctifying grace, unity with the Church, and your inner unity."

The Pope expressed the hope the sinner should have since he remains totally dependent on God the Creator; this dependence, when recognized, can open the way to conversion. Sin is turning one’s back on Him. With the celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, the Church, through the priest, restores people’s unity with God. 

The unity restored with God is also unity with the Church, which is the mystical body of Christ: we are members of the “whole Christ”.

“With the sacrament of Confession, the Church is also enriched by the renewed holiness of her repentant and forgiven children. In the confessional, the priest collaborates in the edification of the Church: one, holy, catholic, and apostolic; and in so doing, he also gives new energy to society and to the world."

“Unity with God and with the Church, finally, is the prerequisite for the inner unity of individuals, so necessary today. This inner unity is a genuine desire, especially among the younger generations. The unfulfilled promises of unbridled consumerism and the frustrating experience of a freedom detached from the truth are opportunities for evangelization. They allow us to awaken those existential questions to which only Christ can give a full answer. God became man to save us, and He does so also by nurturing our religious sense, our irrepressible longing for truth and love, so that we may embrace the Mystery in which ‘we live and move and have our being’."

Those who allow themselves to be continually renewed by God’s forgiveness become agents of reconciliation in everyday life. In him or her are fulfilled the words attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace”.

Dear friends, never neglect to approach the Sacrament of Reconciliation with constancy, so that you may always be the first to benefit from divine Mercy.

Mar 29 Sun - Am I committed to Jesus?

 

Mar 29 Sun
Am I committed to Jesus?
Jesus makes his entry into Jerusalem as the Messiah upon a donkey, just as had been prophesied many centuries before. The people also acclaim him in a clearly messianic fashion. The Pharisees knew these prophecies very well, but so also did the common people, and they were visibly overjoyed.

The triumph of Jesus is a simple affair; He makes do with a poor animal for a throne. “I don’t know about you, but I am not humiliated to acknowledge that in the Lord’s eyes I am a beast of burden: ‘I am like a donkey in your presence, but I am continually with you. You hold my right hand,’ you take me by the bridle" (St. Josemaría).

Jesus also wants to enter triumphantly into the lives of men today, riding upon a humble animal; he would like us to bear witness to him in the simplicity of our work done well, showing forth our cheerfulness, our serenity, and our sincere concern for others.

The story of each man is the story of God’s continual watchfulness over him. Each man is the object of the Lord’s special love. Jesus was ready to do everything for Jerusalem, but the city was not willing to open up its gates to his mercy. This is the deep mystery of human freedom, which always retains that sad possibility of rejecting the grace of God. “Free man, subject yourself to a voluntary servitude, so that Jesus won’t have to say of you what He is said to have told Saint Teresa about others: ‘Teresa, I was willing. But men were not’."

How indeed are we responding to the countless promptings of the Holy Spirit, who seeks to make us holy in the midst of our ordinary duties and surroundings? Each day, how often do we say ‘yes’ to God and ‘no’ to our selfishness, to our laziness, and to everything that amounts to a lack of love, even if it is only something small?

St Bernard comments, “How different the cries, ‘Away with him, away with him, crucify him,’ and then ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, hosanna in the highest!’ How different the cries are that now are calling him ‘King of Israel’ and then, in a few days, will be saying, ‘We have no king but Caesar!’ What a contrast between the green branches and the cross, between the flowers and the thorns! Before they were offering their own clothes for him to walk upon, and so soon afterwards they are stripping him of his, and casting lots upon them."

The triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem asks for loyalty and perseverance from each one of us; it calls us to deepen in our faithfulness, and for our resolutions to be more than just bright lights that sparkle for a moment and then fade away. Thus, we will be following Our Lord unto the Cross.
Excerpts from F. Fernández Carvajal 

Mar 28 Sat - What is the role of the lay people in the Church?

 

Mar 28 Sat
What is the role of the lay people in the Church?

Before the Second Vatican Council, some thought that the term “the Church” referred to “the priests.” Some laypeople could also be a part of her, but mostly as second fiddles, organizing the choir, removing the dust from the images, and similar tasks.

When Saint Josemaría preached that all were called to sanctity, precisely in the midst of common activities, he was often misjudged. Soon after, the universal call to sanctity became one of the brightest reminders of the Council.

With the universal Church as the means of salvation established by God, all the faithful are called, each according to his or her particular condition, to exercise the mission which God entrusted to the Church to fulfill in the world. [CIC, 204; cf. CCC, 871–873]

Because of this radical unity of God’s people, ALL the faithful share in Christ’s priesthood: the BAPTISMAL (common, or royal) priesthood of all the faithful. And baptism is equal to all (no class A, B, or platinum).

“The laity are … the faithful who by Baptism are incorporated into Christ; …in their personal manner carry on the mission of the whole Christian people in the Church and in the world.…”

“By reason of their special vocation, it belongs to the laity to seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God’s will. They live in the world, that is, they are engaged in every work and business of the earth and in the ordinary circumstances of social and family life, which, as it were, constitute their very existence.” [Vat II, Lumen Gentium, 31; cf. LG, 30–38].

Moreover, Christ wanted for the Church to have a HIERARCHY –to teach, rule, and sanctify–with the power and mission to teach doctrine, guard the deposit of the faith, govern the life of the Church, and administer the sacraments. This is the MINISTERIAL or hierarchical priesthood of those who have received the Sacrament of Holy Orders. The ministerial priesthood is at the service of the common priesthood to develop the baptismal grace of all Christians.

Thus, in the Church, there is both a radical equality of dignity (a unity of mission), and a diversity of function among the faithful. Priests and laity are both equally “Christian.” The lay people are not simply “assistants” of the priests; rather, both priests and lay people are called to serve Christ and the Church.

The mission of the entire Church and that of the hierarchy are not identical, just as the words Church and hierarchy are not synonymous.

The Church’s mission falls squarely on the shoulders of all her members, while the mission of the hierarchy –a particular aspect of the mission of the Church– is carried out by the members of the hierarchy.

The mission of the laity is not merely a participation in the mission of the hierarchy; rather, it is a specific participation in the mission of the Church.

Mar 27 Fri - Why should Our Mother Mary suffer?

 

Mar 27 Fri
Why should Our Mother Mary suffer?
Today, we consider the sorrows of Our Mother. The Virgin Mary is the teacher of hidden and silent sacrifice.

Our Lady meditated on the mission she was called to carry out at Christ's side! “But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart. Let us try to imitate her, talking to our Lord, conversing like two people in love about everything that happens to us, even the most insignificant incidents." St. Josemaría.

That is the way Mary lived during the thirty years of Jesus' hidden life: years of simple, ordinary life, just like that of any other home in a small village in Galilee, but years filled with ever-increasing fervor as she carried out God's will, and waited vigilantly for the moment in which her soul would be pierced with the sword foretold by Simeon.

One day, when Jesus was about thirty, he said goodbye to his Mother and left the house in Nazareth. He was beginning his public life. Perhaps Mary thought that the moment had come for her to play her part in what she had been waiting for so ardently, and so we see her with Christ at Cana. But Jesus said to her: “My hour has not yet come." From then on, until the moment of the Passion, our Lady practically disappears from the Gospel scenes.

We must learn from our Mother how to suffer and sacrifice ourselves gladly and without attracting attention, filled with supernatural hope. “What a contrast between our Lady's hope and our own impatience! So often we call upon God to reward us at once for any little good we have done. No sooner does the first difficulty appear than we start to complain. Often, we are incapable of sustaining our efforts, of keeping our hope alive.”

“Contemplating Mary's life will help us to rectify our outlook and make it more supernatural. The great heroines of the Old Testament - Judith, Esther, Deborah - were acclaimed and exalted by the people. Mary's throne, by contrast, like that of her Son, is the Cross. During the rest of her life, until she was taken body and soul into heaven, what most impresses us about her is her quiet presence. St Luke, who knew her well, describes her as being close to the first disciples in prayer. This was the way she lived to the end of her days on earth, she who was to be praised by all creatures for all eternity."

Tell her: “Mother, my Mother - yours, because you are hers on many counts - may your love bind me to your Son's Cross; may I not lack the faith, nor the courage, nor the daring, to carry out the will of our Jesus." This is how we want to live always, and especially in these coming days of Holy Week: closely united to our Blessed Mother, for “we do not wish to, we cannot, leave her alone."

Mar 26 Thu - What is the Communion Rite of the Mass?

 

Mar 26 Thu
What is the Communion Rite of the Mass?
We all stand even as the Great Amen, uniting us to the sacred action, still echoes in the church.

The ancient sacrificial custom required that part of the victim be given back to the person offering the sacrifice. Thus, he became, symbolically, God’s guest. That which was merely a symbol in the pagan rites and a figure in the Jewish offerings is a reality in the Holy Mass. After we have offered to God his Son Jesus Christ in sacrifice, God offers him to us as spiritual food. 

Once they were set free from the oppression of the Egyptians, the Jews had to travel across the desert. Their confidence in God began to dwindle. They began to complain against Moses. But God’s patience was greater than the nasty complaints of the Israelites. He sent them manna, “bread from heavens.” Each morning for forty years, until they entered the Promised Land, the people went out and gathered the day’s portion of manna. 

Jesus himself pointed out the manna as a prefiguration of the Eucharist, “Your fathers ate the manna in the desert, and they are dead; but this is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that a man may eat it and not die.” 

The Christians are strengthened by the body of Christ, the true “Bread from heaven.” If the manna was a token of God’s tender care for the chosen people whom He delivered from slavery, more so does the Eucharist reveal God’s paternal love for us. Those who nourish their soul with the Eucharist, the body and blood of Christ, can be sure of reaching the end of the road that leads to eternal life. 

In the synagogue of Capernaum, Jesus said, 

I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the desert, and they are dead...I am the living bread that has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.

These words perplexed those who heard Christ. The Lord did not take back his assertions; He even went further on: 

I tell you most solemnly, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you.
After this, St John notes, many left him and stopped going with him.

During the Last Supper, Jesus redeemed his promise, making it a reality, to the amazement of the apostles. “What we cannot do, our Lord can do. Jesus Christ, perfect God and perfect man, leaves us not a symbol, but a reality. He himself stays with us. He will go to the Father, but He will also remain among men. He will leave us, not simply a gift that will make us remember him, not an image that becomes blurred with time, like a photograph that soon fades and yellows, and has no meaning except for those who were contemporaries. Under the appearances of bread and wine, He is really present, with his body and blood, with his soul and divinity.” 

Mar 25 Wed - Why do we say that the Church is the People of God?

 

Mar 25 Wed
Why do we say that the Church is the People of God?

Recently, Pope Leo XIV described the Church as the People of God—a People that everyone is called to enter.

“God, who created the world and humanity, and who wishes to save every man, carries out his work of salvation in history, choosing a real People and dwelling among them.” 

As Israel, according to the flesh, which wandered in the desert, was already called the Church of God, so too, the new Israel, which advances in this present era in search of a future and permanent city, is called also the Church of Christ. 

This is the new and perfect Covenant, ratified in Christ, proclaiming the fuller revelation given through the Word of God Himself made flesh.

“Indeed, it is Christ who, in giving His Body and His Blood, unites this People in Himself and in a definitive way. 
It is a People now made up of members of every nation; it is united by faith in Him, by adherence to Him, by living the same life as Him, animated by the Spirit of the Risen One. 
This is the Church: the People of God who draw their existence from the body of Christ and who are themselves the body of Christ; not a people like any other, but the People of God, called together by Him and made up of women and men from all the peoples of the earth. Her unifying principle is not a language, a culture, an ethnicity, but faith in Christ."

“The Church, then, is a messianic People, precisely because it has Christ, the Messiah, as her Head. Above any task or function, therefore, what really matters in the Church is to be grafted onto Christ, to be children of God by grace ... 
We are in the Church to receive life from the Father unceasingly and to live as His children and brethren among ourselves. Consequently, the law that animates relationships in the Church is love, as we receive and experience it in Jesus; and her goal is the Kingdom of God, towards which she walks together with all humanity.”

The identity of the People of God is the dignity and freedom of the children of God, in whose hearts the Holy Spirit dwells as in a temple. All her members have the same dignity, since all have been redeemed by the blood of Christ and called to holiness. This dignity is compatible with a diversity of roles among different members.

“Even those who have not yet received the Gospel are, therefore, in some way, oriented towards the People of God, and the Church, cooperating in Christ’s mission, is called upon to spread the Gospel everywhere and to everyone, so that every person may enter into contact with Christ."

“Thus, every Christian is called to proclaim the Gospel and bear witness in every environment in which one lives and works. This People shows its catholicity, welcoming the wealth and resources of different cultures and, at the same time, offering them the newness of the Gospel to purify them and to raise them up." 

Mar 24 Tue - What kind of alms should I give to the poor?

 

Mar 24 Tue
What kind of alms should I give to the poor?

“Giving alms to the poor is one of the chief witnesses to fraternal charity: it is also a work of justice pleasing to God.” Charity toward the poor comes in many forms: we can give them fish for a day or teach them to fish.

What constitutes “the poor” encompasses a broad range, from destitution to struggling to make ends meet. Charity to the former may include money and clothing; to the latter, it could include scholarships for school or free training for a profession. The point for the giver is to meet the need, whatever that may be, in order both to ease the recipient’s suffering and to enable him to feel God’s love through our compassion. In doing so, we show “a preferential love” for the poor that is a hallmark of a true disciple of Christ.

'May God give you health.' - Doesn't this wish for mere physical well-being, with which some beggars demand or acknowledge alms, leave a bad taste in your mouth?

One should not be “reductionist.” What about the “spiritually poor?” In our day, sad to say, real spiritually poor people exist in droves: first, the lonely, depressed, addicted, and suicidal are some of them. Of course, these have nothing to do with the “poor in spirit,” who are the humble before God.

Then, those who live without God in their lives are also spiritually poor.

As with material poverty, spiritual poverty has a range: those who do not know God or have forsaken Him are the most destitute; those who have God but not Christ are a rung up; those who have Christ but not the Catholic Church are less poor but still suffer from not having their needs completely met; those who are Catholic but do not attend Mass are blind to their poverty.

The spiritually poor surely need to receive charity too. Should we exclude them from among “the poor”? What should this charity be?

Some think, from a materialistic worldview, that faith is relative, and secondary to persons’ “real”— that is, material — needs. Holders of this view may well believe in Christ, but they do not think, contrary to our Lord’s repeated warnings and the continuous teaching of the Church, that what they believe matters or has anything to do with salvation.

Yet Saint Josemaría told us, Agreed: your concern ought to be for 'them.’ But your first concern must be yourself, your own interior life. Otherwise, you will not be able to serve them.

"You need interior life and doctrinal formation." Be demanding of yourself! As a Christian person, you have to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, for you are obliged to give a good example with holy shamelessness.

Don’t place obstacles in the way of grace. You need to be convinced that to be leaven, you must become a saint and must struggle to identify yourself with Him.

Your interior life and your formation include the piety and the principles a child of God must have, to give flavor to everything by his active presence there. 

Mar 23 Mon - Am I a good instrument in the hands of God?

 

Mar 23 Mon
Am I a good instrument in the hands of God?

A pencil used to be a very useful instrument when there were no computers. 

Here, the seven qualities of a pencil🖍️, which, if you manage to adopt them, will make you a happy person, always at peace with God and the world.

❤️ First quality: You must never forget that there is a hand guiding you. That hand is God, and He always guides us to fulfill His Will.

❤️Second quality: Now and then, I have to stop writing and use a sharpener. That makes the pencil suffer a little, but afterwards, it is much sharper.
You, too, must learn to bear certain pains and sorrows, because they will make you a better person.

❤️Third quality: The pencil always allows us to use an eraser to rub out any mistakes, turning it upside down.
This means that correcting something we did is not necessarily a bad thing; it helps to keep us on the right path.

❤️ Fourth quality: what really matters in a pencil is not its wooden exterior, but the graphite inside.
So always pay attention to what is happening inside you.

❤️Fifth quality: It always leaves a mark.
In just the same way, you should know that everything you do in life will leave a mark, so try to be conscious of that the trail you leave is right.

❤️Sixth quality: It gets shorter and shorter with use.... so too is life.
Put it aright while it lasts.

❤️Seventh quality: It writes till the very end. Be useful and productive till the end.

The saints are examples of good instruments in the hands of God. In the pic, St John Paul II praying before Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico. 

Mar 22 Sun - After death, should I hope for my own resurrection?

 

Mar 22 Sun
After death, should I hope for my own resurrection?

Even though all living things on earth die, as a consequence of original sin, man must suffer bodily death. 

By death, the soul is separated from the body, but in the resurrection, God will give incorruptible life to our body, transformed by reunion with our soul. Just as Christ is risen and lives forever, so all of us are called to rise at the last day to live with Him.

In the raising of Lazarus, Christ reunited this poor man’s body and soul and regenerated him to corruptible life, the natural life we live now.

But Christ raises us from an incorruptible body to a ‘spiritual body’.

Jesus links faith in the resurrection to his own person: ‘I am the Resurrection and the life.’ It is Jesus himself who, on the last day, will raise those who have believed in him. Already now in this present life, He gave a sign and pledge of this by restoring Lazarus to life, announcing thereby his own Resurrection.

We are on our earthly pilgrimage. This is our time of grace and mercy in which we work out our earthly life in keeping with the divine plan, and thus decide our ultimate destiny. With Gods’ helping and healing graces, our task is to do good and avoid evil. Our work is to love God and neighbor properly. We prepare for heaven by doing good. We prepare for hell by sinning.

The Church encourages us to prepare ourselves for the hour of our death, the end of this pilgrimage. In the ancient litany of the saints, we prayed: ‘From a sudden and unforeseen death, deliver us, O Lord’.

As Thomas a Kempis wrote:

Every action of yours, every thought, should be those of one who expects to die before the day is out. Death would have no great terrors for you if you had a quiet conscience …. Then why not keep clear of sin instead of running away from death? If you are not ready to face death today, it’s very unlikely you will be tomorrow.

As St. Francis put it:
Praised are you, my Lord, for our sister, bodily Death,
from whom no living man can escape.
Woe on those who will die in mortal sin!
Blessed are they who will be found
in your most holy will,
for the second death will not harm them.

And St. Josemaría: “A true Christian is always ready to appear before God. Because if he is fighting to live as a man of Christ, he is ready at every moment to fulfill his duty."

“A son of God fears neither life nor death, because his spiritual life is founded on a sense of divine filiation. God is my Father, he thinks, and He is the Author of all good; He is all Goodness."

“But, you and I, do we really act as sons of God?"

Let us ask the Mother of God to intercede for us ‘now, and at the hour of our death’ and entrust ourselves to St. Joseph, the patron of a happy death. 

Mar 21 Sat - 6 Elements to make a good spiritual retreat

 

Mar 21 Sat
6 Elements to make a good spiritual retreat.

“Days on retreat. Recollection to know God, to know yourself, and thus to make progress. A necessary time for discovering where and how you should change your life. - What should I do? What should I avoid?"

There are many types of retreats, and many Church organizations offer retreats. They may follow a traditional format, with a priest serving as retreat master, offering spiritual conferences or daily meditations.

Prudent pastoral experience suggests that the following elements are most helpful for a good retreat: 

1. Silence. Look for a retreat location that fosters an atmosphere of silence, not as penance, but as a means to listen to the Holy Spirit and get to know Jesus while getting to know yourself.

When you go on retreat, turn off your cell phone and disconnect from all cyber communication. God wants your attention. Others can wait.

2. The Holy Eucharist. Since the Holy Eucharist is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ, you should attend Mass and receive Holy Communion daily during the retreat. It is also helpful to spend time in silent conversation before the Blessed Sacrament and to participate in the Exposition and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament during the retreat.

3. Confession. The annual retreat provides special graces for a deeper examination of conscience, which impels the soul to deeper contrition. As you spend time in silent reflection and examination of conscience, the Holy Spirit will prompt you to confess your sins to the priest.

4. Meditation, directed or personal, and spiritual Reading. What a joy to read the Gospels slowly and silently! How much good does it do to the soul!

Priority should be given to the New Testament, and first and foremost to the Gospels. The soul benefits greatly from reading and reflecting on the words and actions of our blessed Savior.

It is not a matter of “learning” new things, but of listening to something that challenges you and leads you to repent and make resolutions to rectify.

Classics like «The Three Ages of Interior Life» of Reginald Garrigou-LaGrange, «Imitation of Christ» of Thomas á Kempis, the books of St. Josemaría, or «In Conversation with God» of Francis Fernandez Carvajal are good choices for your ‘extra’ reading.

5. Closeness to the Blessed Mother. After Our Lord's ascension into heaven, the apostles gathered around Our Lady and accompanied her in prayer. Ten days later, at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit poured out His grace on each of those present in the Upper Room, and thus the Church was born.

During your retreat, take time to pray the rosary daily and meditate deeply on each mystery. By reflecting on the example of the Blessed Mother, you will draw closer to Our Lord.

As your retreat draws to a close, be sure to make some practical and generous resolutions (no more than three) to improve in prayer, apostolate service, and sacrifice. Write these resolutions in your notebook or save them on your phone.

With God's grace and your humble contrition, you will make progress. 

Mar 20 Fri - Am I absorbed in thinking too much about the past?

 

Mar 20 Fri

Am I absorbed in thinking too much about the past?

The tale of the 3 MONKS AND THE DEVIL.
The demon appeared to three monks, and he told them, “If I gave you power to change something from the past, what would you change?”

The first of them, with great apostolic fervor, replied: "I would prevent you from making Adam and Eve fall into sin, so that humanity could not turn away from God."

The second, a man full of mercy, said to him: "I would prevent you from tempting, and you will condemn yourself eternally".

The third of them was the simplest and, instead of responding to the Tempter, he got on his knees, made the sign of the cross, and prayed saying: "Lord, free me from the temptation of what could be, and was not".

The devil, giving a raucous cry and shuddering with pain, vanished.

The other two, surprised, said to him: "Brother, why have you reacted like this?"
He replied: "First: we must NEVER dialogue with the enemy.

Second: NOBODY in the world has the power to change the past.

Third: Satan's INTEREST was not to prove our virtue, but to trap us in the past, so that we neglect the present, the only time in which God gives us His grace and we can cooperate with it to fulfill His will."

Of all the demons, the one that catches the most men and prevents them from being happy is wishful thinking, that of "What could have been and was not". The past should be left to the mercy of God, and the future to his Providence. Just the present is in our hands. "Love what is lovable, Pray, Live here and now."

Mar 19 Thu - How did St. Joseph pray?

 

Mar 19 Thu
How did St. Joseph pray?

The serene and strong figure of St. Joseph surprises us: the Gospels do not convey any of his words, and his actions were simple, without much drama.

Although his life was not marked by significant external actions, it was full of internal activity. We see a man who knew how to respond to challenges through the silence of prayer and, as a result, was able to carry out his work with the freedom that comes from true love.

The Gospels speak of what Joseph "did," but not of his life of deep contemplation. St. John Paul II told us that his whole life was true prayer. St. Joseph was attentive to the voice of God behind all events and people. This enabled him to hear God even in the faint images of dreams.

While he slept, he discovered his vocation, which would fill all his days with a sense of mission: to care for Jesus and Mary.

An angel visited him by night to reveal God's plan. Even then, we do not hear Joseph's response to the angelic message; he simply did what God asked him to do.

Between St. Joseph's interior life and his external actions, we see no discontinuity because he transformed his life into a path of prayer. He turned God's dream into his own.

Our life of prayer leads us, like St. Joseph, to always seek refuge in the Lord. The Holy Patriarch was able to endure everything, because he knew how to put his heart in Jesus: with Him, every situation becomes pleasant. He never saw his vocation as a set of obligations but as the undeserved gift of being able to live at all times with the Son of God.

We too can live in the hidden life of Christ. The lives of Joseph and Mary developed in constant dialogue with Jesus: they lived to see the Lord grow, but they were the ones who grew in the eyes of God. They cared for Jesus in a humble house in Nazareth while God protected them in His love.

True prayer, when it is an open dialogue with God, gives us the possibility of viewing the world, in some way, from His perspective. Then our life acquires a different, unsuspected dimension, like that of St. Joseph, who knew how to place faith and love in the hope of the great mission that God was initiating in the world: the redemption of mankind. And God did so by using him—a carpenter from Galilee.

Joseph never put himself at the center. He knew how to be out of the limelight, placing Mary and Jesus at the center of his life.

Prayer makes us truly free because it allows us to enter into the logic of self-giving, which makes us lighter and helps us give the right weight to each event.

When we live in constant dialogue with God, our lives are no longer chained to our likes or dislikes, although these do not cease to exist. Nor do our miseries worry us too much, because we know that He comes to help us and turn them into a source of grace, as were Christ's wounded hands and open side.