Dec 15, 2009 | Latest
ADVENT PONDERINGS 3
St. Joseph was an extremely sensitive man. “All of his senses tingled with the awareness of God’s presence everywhere.”(1) Because he was a man of such sensitivity and faith, because he was so pure and close to God himself, he would surely soon have sensed God’s action in this circumstance of his life. Joseph, as well as Mary, lived in an atmosphere of the spiritual. They easily referred everything to God and saw everything as coming from God. And so Joseph moved on, even if in a puzzled and confused way, to the wondering realization that somehow this situation must be an act of God. You and I would not have come to this conclusion, but St. Joseph was a man of superior faith. “He saw God in the light; he saw God in the darkness.”(2) God was as present to him as the piece of wood in his hands.
Even as Joseph was sure that his beloved fiancée was not guilty of sin, he was nevertheless in anguish over the mystery before him. He felt he could not marry her, but he could shelter her with his silence By not taking her before the law court, he gave testimony to Mary’s innocence Yet he still felt he would have to “put her away privately”, since this was the most respectful and only solution he could think of with his human reasoning powers. He made his decision trusting in God as his fiancée had. God would bring this situation to His own good end, even if first they both had to go through deep suffering. The two of them suffered and waited, neither one knowing fully what was in the other’s mind and heart.
Why did Joseph want to “put Mary away privately” if he did not suspect sin? If this pure woman is not a adulteress and this pregnancy does somehow come from God, then there would be reason enough to fear the awesomeness of what was taking place in the life of his betrothed. God has in some unheard of manner brided his bride. Could he dare intrude on what God was doing? Could he claim a child that was not his own? Surely he would have been filled with fear of God and with a sense of his own unworthiness. Perhaps he felt like St. Peter at the miraculous catch of fish saying to Our Lord, “Depart from me for I am a sinful man”, or like Isaiah saying to the angel, “I held my peace: I am a man of unclean lips.”
St. Bernard had this very same thought: “Joseph wanted to put Mary away for the same reason that made Peter seek to put away the Lord when he said, “Depart from me for I am a sinful man.” St. Bernard also brings in the centurion who said, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof.” Joseph felt he was not worthy to enter under the roof of marriage with God’s bride.
All of this surely caused Joseph anguish as he considered putting away her whom he loved with all his heart. He had decided that he would have to put her away not because he believed her to be guilty, but because he reverenced a profound mystery in her, one that he could not understand, to which he could only submit. Joseph’s heart must surely have broken at the very thought of giving up his bride-to-be. But not for long because Joseph’s reasons were quick. He would have come to a decision within a few days and, like Abraham, just at the moment when he was about to carry out his decision, an angel came to rescue him. But not before he had suffered heartbreak. We must not take from Joseph the glory of trial and suffering of which this event was undoubtedly the most searing in his life. Joseph grew into new manhood from this suffering test. It was a test surpassing the test of Abraham when he was told to sacrifice his only son because the love between spouses is more intimately profound than the love between father and son. And the love between these two extraordinarily pure spouses was an extraordinarily strong love.
Dec 5, 2009 | Latest
Advent Ponderings on the Silent Saint — Part 2
If this were not so, it would have been little shield for Joseph to have taken a pregnant girl into his home as his bride. The townspeople would have forever been under the impression that this child had been conceived out of wedlock. I, for one, cannot think that Almighty God would have allowed there to exist the appearance of scandal at the Incarnation of His Only Begotten Son. St. Bernard corroborates this position. He says, “It was needful that Mary be affianced to Joseph since the vigilance of her betrothed would thus safeguard both her chastity and her public repute. What could more befit the wisdom and dignity of God’s providence? By this providential arrangement there was someone to be entrusted with Heaven’s secrets, and the good name of the Virgin Mother was protected from slander.”
If this premise is established, it then becomes evident that Mary’s pregnancy was a dilemma to no one but Joseph. The townspeople would then think this was just the legitimate offspring of Joseph and Mary, as it is declared in St. Luke’s Gospel when he writes, “When Jesus began his work, He was about thirty years of age, being, so it was supposed, the son of Joseph….”
With the annunciation of her own motherhood fresh upon her heart, we next see Mary setting out with haste to see the sign of her aged cousin’s pregnancy. She went with haste; that is, without making any preparations and without giving Joseph an explanation. She would remain with her cousin Elizabeth to assist her at the time of her delivery and to help care for the newborn infant John. What a gracious nurse the young Mary must have made! After a few months, she left Elizabeth, Zachary and John to return to Nazareth.
Soon after her return, the signs of her own childbearing became evident to Joseph. Immediately he must have been thrown into bewildered consternation. “What is this? How can this be?” His beloved affianced one with child? If the thought of adultery passed through his mind at all, surely it did not lodge there for long. He could clearly see that his promised one was still as radiant and pure as she had been before her sojourn to Aim Karim. Or, perhaps, now she was even more radiant with the Godchild within her very body.
Besides this evident purity and candour emanating from his fiancee’s entire being, a second reason why I do not think that Joseph suspected adultery is because the Gospel tells us that Joseph was a just man, and because he was just he was unwilling to expose her to the law. If he were a just man who thought his betrothed had betrayed him, he would obviously have been obliged to expose her to the law. Is not the Gospel telling us that he was just in the sense of holy, so holy that he could see beyond the external appearances to the spiritual. He could see that his betrothed was still radiantly pure. One look into her eyes would have told him that. Her purity would not allow for such sin. There had to be another explanation.
I have read several authors who have also expressed this belief that it is impossible to imagine Saint Joseph attributing the sin of adultery to his beloved fiancée. The two most prominent are St. Jerome and St. Bernard. St. Jerome says, “Joseph knew Mary’s holiness hid in silence a mystery he did not understand.” St. Bernard tells us, “St. Joseph would not have been just if he had connived with her known guilt. He could not bear to expose her to a trial under the law because he did not think she was guilty of sin. He saw and trembled at the signs of the divine presence in Mary.” Father Denis O’Shea tells us, “Joseph did not think she had been guilty of sin. He was a just man and so would not risk a miscarriage of justice by bringing her before a public court. He knew she had not sinned. He recalled her glorious, steadfast eyes, her lovely face, her modest mien, her air of candour and innocence, her whole person breathing purity. It were profanation to doubt her!”
Nov 28, 2009 | Latest
By Sister Joseph, PCC: Advent Ponderings on the Silent Saint
First of 4 Parts
Saint Joseph is the silent saint who will not defend himself. If only St. Matthew had given us two more sentences in his account of the Gospel pericope on Mary and Joseph we would have the solution to one of the most tantalizing natural mysteries in the Gospels. What did Joseph really think when he discovered his beloved fiancée to be with child? What made him decide to “put her away privately?” Almighty God, the primary author of Sacred Scripture, knew that it would be beneficial for us to ponder and labor over the few sentences Matthew did give us. As our minds grapple with the hidden meanings in the Scripture stories, our faith increases. While none of us will ever know, until we reach heaven, all of the details surrounding the beginning stages of Mary and Joseph’s life together, may I have the privilege of adding my own meditations to this open field of speculation?
To begin at the beginning, when the Angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would conceive and bear a Son through the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit and then left her, this young Jewish girl must have been filled with wonder and a subdued joy over what had just happened to her. At this very moment, because of her gracious, obedient fiat, she was carrying the Son of the Most High God within her womb. If she kept and pondered events that occurred later on such as the visit of the shepherds at the birth of this Son, and the words of Simeon to her at the time of His presentation in the temple, then she surely kept and pondered this first tremendous, incomprehensible occurrence in her life. She kept and pondered it in secret. The secrets of the King are for the King alone.
Hers was never more of an enclosed heart than at this time when she felt the first stirrings of the Divine Seed within her virgin body. How could she speak of having conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit? Her silence was earth shattering with the power to burst forth into her Magnificat when she met her aged cousin Elizabeth. But for the present she could not speak of it to anyone, not even to her beloved Joseph. It was too delicate and too sacred for human conversation. If God Himself would reveal the secret to Elizabeth, He would at the proper time also reveal it to Joseph. This sacred secret was between God and herself. The Greater would have to be the One to make it known to any other; it was not for Mary to reveal.
Mary owed reverence and submission to her lord Joseph, but she owed even greater reverence and submission to her Lord in heaven and in her womb. Her silence was profound and heroic, causing no little pain to her own heart and to the heart of her betrothed. Such a mature silence shows the strength and wisdom of the young Jewish girl whom God had chosen as His bride and as His mother.
The Gospel narrative tells us that at the time of the announcement from the Angel Gabriel, Mary was betrothed to a man named Joseph. It was the Jewish custom of the times to celebrate weddings in two stages. The betrothal in which the actual marriage contract was sealed, and the celebration of the marriage feast about a year later, which consisted of the bride’s introduction into the bridegroom’s home. Dominican Father Boniface Llamera in his scholarly book, Saint Joseph, adds to this: “Since the essence of matrimony was established by the betrothal, it would follow that the marital union was licit between the betrothed. The Old Law neither prohibited nor authorized it expressly. But we can believe that since the espousals had the force of true matrimony, the marital union was, implicitly at least, considered one of the rights of espoused persons.” It seems to me that this must be the reason why the Gospel narrative begins by telling us that Mary was a betrothed virgin – to let us know that she was within the appropriate state for conceiving a child according to the Jewish culture of her day.
Nov 24, 2009 | Latest
The Seton Difference
Give thanks to the Lord for He is good
His mercy endures forever.
I give thanks for Seton and all the wonderful families that have come together to make her what she is.
In thanksgiving for the good students who continue making Seton great, I am going to give headline like summaries of some of the articles/editorials/columns that appeared in the first two issues of the school newspaper.
Beauty and the Beast announced as spring musical.
KC Dufrain returns to Seton to teach.
God is calling us to endure the heavy cross of suffering.
Seton students serve during the summer in the Dominican Republic, at a Diocesan Work Camp and in Africa with the House of Mercy.
Mrs. Wittman teaches a girls life skill class including First Aid, nutrition, etiquette and cooking.
Advanced Biology worth the extra work.
Maureen Terza becomes Mrs. Campbell.
Embarrassing 7th grade remembrances.
Advice from Seniors and Mr. Heisler to 7th graders.
New Sound System donated by PRO. (Parents Resource Organization).
“Be wary that you do not allow the consumerism of our culture to fool you into replacing God with an [electronic device]”
Haiti Run includes assistance from Seton’s Big Sister and Little Sister group.
Ending of an advice column in answer to a question about how to fit all that Seton offers into a schedule: “Pray…a LOT. It is by the grace of God alone that I find that extra 25th hour in very day to finish whatever project I had already written off as a lost cause. I suggest praying to your guardian angel to help you manage your time more efficiently.’
Debate Corner: Texting vs. Calling – which is better to improve our communication skills.
G.I.R.L. Time founded by Lisa Hill ’09 spreads throughout Northern Virginia helping teenage girls gain more self-respect and develop holy relationships. GIRL = Girls Interested in Real Love
You might also want to check out www.seton-school.org and read about Therese Dodge ’02 making her profession as a sister of Religiose del Sacro Cuore di Firenze. How wonderful.
And here is a partial falls sports summary: girls volleyball reached a #3 ranking in state on way to DAC title; boys soccer upset a higher seed team in the first round of the state tournament; boys and girls cross country placed 4th and 11th at State Meet; boys played on a home school/private school football team; Jameson Hill swims with the elite in Stockholm and Berlin and signs letter of intent to swim at Georgia. If you want to get inundated with info (all of it interesting), check out Mr. Koehr’s swimming site. Looks as if Seton may well repeat as both girls and boys state champions.
And Christ the King was once again given glory in the beautiful Mass and Eucharistic Procession last Friday. The Christ the King statue still greets all who enter the main doors of the school. The main doors have changed but not the statue. Things are alive and well at Seton.
I am also reminded of a newspaper article written by Laura Elliot ‘93 which she entitled “What Makes Seton Different”. It was an article about Andrew Mary. I don’t have her article, so I will retell the story.
Just before Thanksgiving vacation, Seton was invited to an out-of-state high school to look through their school which was shutting down to see if there was anything we could use. Many other schools had already gone through the items, but Mr. Scheetz and I decided it was worth the trip to see if there might be something we could use. Some of the things that we claimed for Seton that day were the big wood and glass cabinets that have been in Mr. Scheetz’s room ever since; the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes which I think is now by the cedar cross in the courtyard and the big crucifix that hangs in the new Corpus Christi building. As I was going through the biology room, I opened a cabinet and discovered what appeared to be a human fetus in a bottle in some liquid. I called Mr. Scheetz over to see if he thought it was real. “No doubt,” was his response. We were shocked and dumbfounded and completely unsure what to do. We were to return over the coming weekend to pick up our claimed items, so we decided we would return to Manassas and consult others about what should be done.
Several mothers we talked to said that we should have brought the baby back with us. Mrs. Carroll took immediate action by calling the Pro-life office of the other diocese to see what could be done. It seemed that all was to be taken care of, so Pete and I returned over the weekend for pick up. I went back to the cabinet expecting that the baby would not be there, but he was. We decided then to take the advice to bring the baby back to Manassas. The drive back gave us a strange feeling. I took the baby to the Carroll’s where I was also living. I brought him up to my room and everything still seemed so strange. Mrs. Carroll began making many calls to get advice. The basic consensus was the obvious advice that we needed to bury the baby, but no one had a clear suggestion how we should go about that.
During the time that Mrs. Carroll was making many calls, I began thinking we might not find a place or a priest. It was the Feast of St. Andrew, November 30th, and I decided to name the baby after him and ask for his intercession. (I actually was not certain if the baby was a boy or a girl.) I asked St. Andrew that we would be able to bury the baby by the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Mrs. Carroll was making no headway until she called Mr. and Mrs. Vander Woude and the newly ordained Father Vander Woude. The VW’s volunteered a plot on their farm, and Father immediately volunteered to perform the burial rites for an unbaptized baby, and he suggested the Immaculate Conception as an appropriate day.
In the time that I didn’t know whether the baby was a boy or a girl, I decided to also give him the middle name of Mary. So Andrew Mary was Seton’s tiny baby and we entrusted him to Blessed Mother for burial on her feast day. Mr. Scheetz made a little wooden coffin for him, and Mrs. Carroll got some of the used linen finger cloths used at Mass with which Mrs. Scheetz lined the coffin.
The Vander Woudes welcomed little Andrew Mary into their home for a viewing. It was a beautiful gathering on a chilly December day. Chris Vander Woude ‘98 carried the coffin from the house to the newly dug grave, and Father VW offered the prayers for the little fellow. Andrew Mary’s body was laid to rest, but one could not help but believe that his soul was already safely in the hands of his Heavenly Mother.
Andrew Mary’s grave can be visited at the Vander Woude farm. He is one person who makes the Seton difference, and I give thanks for his sacred life.
A blessed Thanksgiving to one and all.
The postings are going to be different now that we are entering Advent. I will make a post for each Sunday of Advent: Nov 29; Dec 6, 13 and 20th.
Viva Cristo Rey! Christus Regnat! Jezu, ufam Tobie.
