Saint Joseph is in the House!
Today we welcomed St. Joseph to his new home in the sanctuary of St. Thomas Parish. It is exciting to see images of the saints in our Church to remind us of our universal call to holiness.
Sometimes our protestant brothers and sisters do not understand the practice of having depictions of the saints in our churches. They mistake our veneration of the saints for worship. As I have continued to grow in my faith, I have come to see the saints not only as models for holiness of life, but friends who are still present to us today. We Christians do not see death as an end, but as a beginning of new life. We do not see ourselves as separated from our brothers and sisters who have fallen asleep as if there is a wall that divides us. A better analogy is a veil of separation, a thin curtain that allows us to still be connected to the communion of saints.
The best homily I can remember about St. Joseph was from one of my fellow seminarians at Mundelein Seminary in Chicago. He pointed out that we Christians claim Jesus as the savior of the world. He saved each one of us from sin and death. St. Joseph, he said, is the only person he could recall who ever saved Jesus. As his foster father, when Jesus was in danger as a child of being slaughtered, Joseph took Jesus and Mary into Egypt to save him from death. That particular homily has stuck with me for over ten years.
I look forward to having Bishop Stika here to bless the new statue of St. Joseph this coming Sunday!
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