Solemnity of St. Joseph - March 19, 2022

2 Samuel 7:4-5a, 12-14a, 16     Romans 4:13, 16-18, 22     Matthew 1:16, 18-21, 24a or Lk 2:41-51a

One evening in the middle of the night my youngest boy Nicholas woke up crying. He needed a diaper change, and while in the process of being changed, well, he needed a whole outfit change. And as you can imagine at 2:00 a.m. with a busy day of work ahead I was less than thrilled about any of it.

But the funny thing is, I don’t really remember the next day at all. All I remember is rocking my (all too quickly) growing baby back to sleep, the warmth of his fleece pajamas, the rhythmic sound of his breathing, and the baby-sweet smell of his head in the jet black night.

And all of that was on the periphery of what I cared about at that moment. That night, I just wanted my kid to fall asleep so I could go to sleep. But the truly essential was on the periphery: a child, who needed and wanted to be held.

St. Joseph realized that the essential call of his life was on the periphery. In a prayer invoking his intercession, Pope Francis asks St. Joseph: “You who come from the peripheries, help us to convert our gaze, and to prefer what the world discards and marginalizes.”

That’s a wonderful thing to ask of St. Joseph, to help us see those on the margins. There, St. Joseph discovered what was most essential: God, calling to him, asking him to be held, to be loved, to be cared for.

In the end, when we find ourselves looking back at our own life, I think we’ll discover the same thing. It was at the margins where God reminded us what was essential: the time we cared for the poor and the sick, the time when we reached out in reconciliation toward someone who hurt us, the time we allowed ourselves to be interrupted by someone who was suffering with so much less.

St. Joseph, who found God on the peripheries, pray for us.

Q:  In my daily life, whom do I see that come from the peripheries?  Do I convert or divert my gaze?