Church of Jesus Christ of the Universe

By Mauro

18 March 2023
Hos 6, 1-6; Ps 50(51); Lk 18, 9-14

Tomorrow is the feast of St. Joseph, but we will celebrate it on Monday as tomorrow is Sunday.

Like many of you, I have re-read St. Joseph’s messages that he gave us over the years.[1] Although not many, there are some. What stands out most in the words of St. Joseph is that rather than speaking about himself, he always speaks about Mary Most Holy. He always presents to us the figure of Mary Most Holy who was his wife, his light, his guide and his help, even though the figure of St. Joseph was not, and still is not, marginal in the Church.

St. Joseph has reminded me of something that I want to share with you: it is simplicity in holiness. There is no one as righteous as St. Joseph, the most righteous man. In my opinion, he is the humblest person that has ever been on Earth. He lived his holiness in the normality of life as he carried out his task, which he had received at his conception when God thought of him. In God’s mind, St. Joseph was to be entrusted with the family of Nazareth, with Mary, the Mother of God, and Jesus Christ. He lived his life fully awakening in himself the image and likeness of God, which is imprinted in every baptised man and woman.

Thus, I want to say this to all of us: by following our path in life, in normality, keeping God in the centre of our life – St. Joseph gave God the first place – God will reawaken in each of us the image and likeness of Him and make us His children; that is holiness. Holiness is imprinted within us: “Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy” (Lev 19,2).

We have been created for holiness. When St. Paul writes to the saints of Ephesus[2] and Corinth[3], he addresses them as “saints”. I believe that there is a need for the transformation of the mind. I also think that the concept that the Catholic Church uses to proclaim a saint is wrong: he must have performed a miracle. In my opinion, this is wrong. The miracle happens in every person who rediscovers to be a child of God; that is the miracle. Imposing the occurrence of a miracle to declare that someone is a saint deviates from the true attitude toward the mystery of God, the true attitude towards holiness. We are all called to holiness.

Of course, if we see holiness with the idea that one must renounce everything, do impossible things, have heroic virtues etc.; the requirements will be heroism, exhaustion, renunciation, fasting, whipping oneself etc. Obviously, even those who are willing to be holy will postpone or give up. It would be different if the path to holiness were presented as that of a happy, joyful, full man who, along the path of normal life, helped by God in faith, finds his image and likeness of God because he encounters God. In the normal daily life, he sees that God is present and works for him and with him and helps him to transform himself into a new human being. I repeat that God must be in the centre, and one must know this: “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17, 3). Indeed, life is not the things we do and what we experience as that is our mission; true life is knowing the Father. Then the dynamic that guided St. Joseph and now guides everyone begins to work.

It is a journey of faith; however, if we are Christians, yet do not have faith, we are not Christians. If we are Christians, we should believe that we have a Father who created us; we should at least know that the Father loves us to the point of giving us His Son, making Him die on the Cross for us, making Him pay for us. With this view of faith, holiness depends no longer on what we do, but on how we do it and why we do it. Then, every gesture becomes a miracle; it becomes primary energy[4] and a sharing of positivity.

I will return to St. Joseph, the most righteous man. In the Gospel, we do not read about Joseph as someone who preached or built open hospitals or orphanages; he did not go to Egypt to save all Egyptians when he had to flee there; he was a carpenter. St. Joseph carried out the mission that God had entrusted to him, which was to look after the family of Nazareth. He was meant to do this. He did not have an easy life. Despite living with the Son of God and Mary Most Holy, he had to struggle a lot. He had to leave everything more than once: he left Nazareth to go to Bethlehem, probably thinking, “Sooner or later I’ll come back”, but then he had to flee to Egypt. When he had just begun to settle down a bit, he had to leave Egypt to return to Nazareth.

We know from certain writings of Catherine Emmerich[5] that the journey to Egypt was not an easy one. All three risked dying of hunger and thirst; they were even taken by robbers. Among other things, she said that the robber’s child that was saved by the presence of the Holy Family is the one who was on the cross and to whom Jesus said: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23,43).

It was not an easy life, but Joseph moved on. It was not even a life of continuous miracles. The miracle, yes, was to believe; the miracle was to listen to that child and recognise Him as the Son of God; to be transformed by that child. The miracle was to continue to remain humble, honest and just, welcoming the transformation of the mind; it was certainly not easy for an Israelite to assume a Christian way of thinking. The first incident was when he secretly decided to divorce Mary because he thought that this was the  right thing to do, but then an angel advised him: “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit” (Mt 18 1, 18-25).

I say this to show you that each of us should welcome life as a gift from God and welcome everything that happens as a gift that leads us to know the Father to enter into the plan the Lord had in mind for us from the beginning. He had already thought of us as his children and we must go back to discovering what it is to be children of God. Thus, it means welcoming not only joys but also illnesses in this way, believing that all this is necessary to know our mission and actively participate in getting to know the Father. We know that everything contributes to good, as Saint Paul said.[6] These are the things that make the difference and by which we become holy; not by doing extraordinary things, but by living an ordinary life in an extraordinary way, and we do so when we live with faith in the Son of God. When we live like this, we will no longer escape from our problems, but lift a prayer to the Father to help us take every step and face every trial and every effort, knowing that it will transform us and that all has been foreseen for us.

Unlike today’s first reading[7], the Israelites thought: “It is God who punishes us; it is God who comforts us.” God does not punish us. God allows certain situations when they contribute to our growth, our transformation. God does not punish anyone; the punishment comes from what we create ourselves, from the world. The punishment comes when we run away from God, when we run away from trials.

In faith, we know that everything is for our good. “I can do all this through him who gives me strength” (Phil 4,13). We can do it always trying to live with a positive view, certain that God only wants the highest good for us and for others. Everything contributes to the good. This is how St. Joseph lived. It was not easy, but it was a full life.

We often remember that all the saints, those we know and feel close to, have been persecuted and have worked hard. However, I tell you that if they had not gone through those hardships in their lives, they would not have become saints. In the struggles, they experienced the fullness of life. Life, as Mother Teresa said, is a gift: live it! It does not mean running away from difficulties and trials but going through them. It means accepting e.g. an illness without saying: “All this happens to me; how can I be healed?” Rather, we should ask ourselves, “What does God want? Where is He taking me? What does this disease transform in me?” Then everything will become a gift. Running away from the path to God and everything that life places before us means running away from holiness and, if one runs away, he will keep running away until the end of time. If one escapes even to Purgatory, at the end of time God will judge him. We will leave that to God.

St. Joseph, the most righteous man, at the head of God’s family, even now at the head of the Church, is holy for how he lived on Earth and he continues to be alive on Earth: he is the guardian who prays and intercedes for us.

We entrust to God ourselves, the whole Church and every person of goodwill. We entrust to God all those who have to make decisions today; those who have to decide whether to welcome a child or choose to have an abortion. We entrust to God those on the deathbed and those who died of sudden death on this day. We entrust the rulers who decide the fate of many people with their choices. May St. Joseph be a light for each one of them, even if they do not know him and have never prayed to him; in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

[1]  See Message of St. Joseph of 19 March 2020, “Guarding Grace to Live”, published in the book “Towards the New Creation- Vol. VII, year 2020”; see also, the message of St. Joseph of 18 March 2020, “Mary the New Woman”, published in the book “Towards the New Creation- Vol. VIII, year 2021”; see also Messages by Year on our website, https://towardsthenewcreation.com/

[2] See Eph 1, 1

[3] See 1Cor 1, 1-2

[4] You can deepen the subject of primary energy in the book of S. Caterina, “Rewriting History – Vol. II – The Universe and Its Inhabitants”, available on, https://www.lucidellesodo.com

[5] Anne Catherine Emmerich was a German Christian nun, a mystic and a seer. The flight to Egypt is described in the book, “The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary”, p. 166, Kindle Edition

[6] See Rom 8, 28

[7] See Osea 6, 1-6