HOW YOSJ CAN TRANSFORM YOU | KAIROS GLOBAL | APRIL 2021

Author: Tena Conil

Intro: What does spiralling pornography use, the current COVID-19 unemployment and a ‘Deadhead’ drug trafficker have in common with the Year of St Joseph? Tena Conil gives us the answer.

A great prophetic presence at this moment in history

As you know we are now in the Holy Year of St Joseph (YOSJ), which Pope Francis declared on 8th December 2020, and will continue till 8th December 2021. The timing of this Holy Year where Lord Jesus ‘sends’ his own foster father – the greatest of saints after his Blessed Mother – amidst a world (and the Church) gagged with COVID-19 restrictions is nothing short of a divine intervention and a prophetic presence. At the close of the March devotion to St Joseph, I would like to offer a few insights on this widely venerated – but little known, giant of a saint and how this Holy Year can transform our life. So how did this Year of St Joseph come to be? Well there’s a bit of a back-story, but first an amazing conversion story.

Drug peddler to dynamic priest and the YOSJ backstory

Born into a practically atheist family in Michigan and whose mother married thrice, Donald was a fanatical ‘Deadhead’ during his teens, rebellious, porn user and a drug addict. With his third ‘father’ in the US Army, the family moved often. While living in Japan, Donald dropped out of high school, ran away from home and eventually became a drug mule for the Japanese mafia. Soon he was on the wanted-list and was deported. Back in the US, he went in and out of rehab and finally ended up in jail. Some years later, when his mother and adoptive father embraced the Catholic faith, Don who had been ‘living like an animal’ with drugs, alcohol and women, ‘who had no career prospects, looked horrible and was going nowhere,’ considered ending his life. Staying up at his parents’ home late one night, while looking for a magazine to quell the panic-inducing silence, he noticed a random book about Marian apparitions. Little did he know that his curiosity would lead to a life-changing, spiritual experience. Don had no idea what the subject was but couldn’t put the book down. He broke down and wept till morning when he insisted on meeting with a Catholic priest. After his radical conversion he reformed his life and went on to earn degrees in Philosophy and Theology. Today he is Fr Donald Calloway MIC, a Catholic priest belonging to the congregation of Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception, a reputed author and the Vocations Director of MIC. 

St Joseph played a significant role in Fr Calloway’s spiritual growth and his book, Consecration to St Joseph: The Wonders of Our Spiritual Father, was a Catholic best-seller in 2020. A copy of the book was also sent to the Holy Father Pope Francis with an appeal to consider a Holy Year dedicated to St Joseph. This is believed to have been an impetus for the Holy See who were already looking for a worthy commemoration of the 150th anniversary of Blessed Pope Pius IX's decree naming St Joseph, Patron and Protector of the Universal Church. In his apostolic letter Patris Corde (With a Father’s Heart) written on the occasion, Pope Francis speaks of how St Joseph ‘concretely expressed (the) Father’ by making an offering of himself in love—‘a love placed at the service of the Messiah.’

Voluminous silence; the singular and prodigious sanctity of Joseph

The scripture says very little of St Joseph; in fact, it doesn’t record a single word spoken by him. But his actions speak louder than his words. Matthew 1:19 says Joseph was a just man. Reflecting on this verse, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI (who was named after St Joseph) says: ‘Joseph’s existence is “ad-justed” to the Word of God. In Joseph, faith is not separated from action. His faith had a decisive effect on his actions. Paradoxically, it was by acting, by carrying out his responsibilities, that he stepped aside and left God free to act, placing no obstacles in his way.’¹

Since no first-degree relic of him exists, theologians believe that St Joseph too (like the Blessed Virgin and Prophet Elijah in the Old Testament) was taken up bodily into heaven, after his death. During the Presentation at the temple when Simeon held the Divine Child for just a few minutes, Scripture testifies (Luke 2:28-34) that he experienced heavenly ecstasy. We realise how great a saint is Joseph, when we remember he was granted this privilege and fatherly rights over the Saviour for many years!

Loving without possessing – a great model for single youth

In a pornography-obsessed world, the message we receive is to ‘possess without loving.’ Here I invite you back to another reflection from Benedict XVI on the relationship of St Joseph with the Blessed Virgin Mary: ‘Joseph teaches us that it is possible to love without possessing. In contemplating Joseph, all men and women can, by God’s grace, come to experience healing from their emotional wounds, if only they embrace the plan (of) God… just as Joseph entered into the work of redemption through Mary.’² Has our vision of sexuality been deformed by sin? No better time than this kairos – the Holy Year of St Joseph to turn over our wounded selves to the Chaste Spouse of the Virgin.

Laying our careers in the hands of the universal Patron of Workers 

The Church expresses her special reverence to St Joseph by celebrating not just the principal Solemnity on his Feast (19th March) but also a second feast day honouring him as the universal Patron of Workers on 1st May, coinciding with UNO’s World Labour Day. In a postmodern world where careers are fuelled by corporate greed to the exclusion of family values and leisure, the life of St Joseph shows us the dignity of and proper disposition towards work. Joseph found contentment because work was not a means to amass wealth and satisfy greed, but an instrument to support his family. Following the commandments, on Sabbath he observed the weekly rest, took part in spiritual observances and celebrations. During trying times of unemployment, the example of the migrant Joseph, seeking employment in a new country helps us understand that it is by complete submission to the will of God – even in the face of hardship, that we become effective workers in the service of God’s plan in our careers. Pope Francis says in Patris Corde: ‘The loss of employment that affects so many… as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, should serve as a summons to review our priorities. Let us implore St Joseph the Worker… that no young person, (and) no family should be without work!’

Obtaining an indulgence during YOSJ

Every sin has two consequences – spiritual and temporal (worldly/physical punishments). Spiritually, by sin I lose my eternal life with God in heaven. Through repentance and a sincere Confession, I can repair this damage. Temporal punishments are suffered physically or mentally due to our wicked actions. These punishments must not be conceived of as God’s vengeance, but since they are committed by us in our free-will, ‘follow from the very nature of sin’ (CCC 1472). 

If we were to imagine our sins as nails driven into a piece of wood, and forgiveness as the removal of those nails, we would still be left with holes in the wood where the nails previously were. God wants not only to forgive our sins, but seeks to go further by healing and transforming us, accomplished by our cooperation with supernatural grace. Through practical acts of penance and indulgences – to return to the example of the nails – the Church proposes to fill in the holes in the wood (so that no further expiation is required in Purgatory). So, an indulgence is when the Church occasionally opens the treasury of heavenly privileges bestowed on her by Christ (Matthew 16: 19) to offer us a partial or plenary (complete) remission (cancellation) of the temporal consequences of sin by prescribing to perform one or more acts of piety, under certain conditions; our heart’s disposition however is paramount. St Philip Neri tells us that we obtain a complete cancellation of sins only to the extent of our desire in leaving a life of sin and turn completely to God – which is why a good Confession is always a precondition to gain indulgence.

During the Holy Year of St Joseph, the Holy Father has granted us eight ways to gain a plenary indulgence – these can be found in the Vatican website under the Apostolic Penitentiary. We shall detail one of it here: the indulgence requires us to follow three usual conditions: receive sacramental Confession, Holy Communion, and pray for the Holy Father, while detaching oneself from all sin. The prescribed act of devotion is to recite any prayer or act of piety in honour of St Joseph, approved by the Church on any of the following days: on Josephite feast days of March 19 or May 1, or the Feast of the Holy Family, or on the 19th of each month or every Wednesday (day dedicated to the memory of the Saint). I whole-heartedly recommend the powerful and profound prayer featured below, ‘To you, O blessed Joseph’ composed by Pope Leo XIII, particularly recommended by the Apostolic Penitentiary.

To You, O Blessed Joseph

To you, O blessed Joseph, do we come in our tribulation, and having implored the help of your most holy Spouse, we confidently invoke your patronage also. Through that charity which bound you to the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God and through the paternal love with which you embraced the Child Jesus, we humbly beg you graciously to regard the inheritance which Jesus Christ has purchased by his Blood, and with your power and strength to aid us in our necessities. O most watchful guardian of the Holy Family, defend the chosen children of Jesus Christ; O most loving father, ward off from us every contagion of error and corrupting influence; O our most mighty protector, be kind to us and from heaven assist us in our struggle with the power of darkness. As once you rescued the Child Jesus from deadly peril, so now protect God's Holy Church from the snares of the enemy and from all adversity; shield, too, each one of us by your constant protection, so that, supported by your example and your aid, we may be able to live piously, to die in holiness, and to obtain eternal happiness in heaven. Amen.

St Joseph sent now to us – at a kairos in history

After Christ completed his salvific work in history, he sent us the all-knowing Spirit of God who patiently awaits through time as he prepares the people of God through the millennia – slowly revealing new means in each era, to enter more fully into communion with the Triune God. From Christology to Mariology, the steady development of Christian dogma and its organic integration into the mainstream life of the Church is evidence to the above. If we look at sacred art, even when no historic or scriptural evidence existed to regard him so – St Joseph was traditionally depicted as an old man and a passive, background figure most of the time. This was perhaps not to blur our faith, as it assimilated the vital mysteries of the central figures of Christ and his Blessed Mother. It is therefore a sign of great favour to each of us living at this point in history, that precisely now – when the Church is persecuted – often through indirect but systemic means that God chose to send us this patriarch and giant of a saint. As Pharaoh told the famine-stricken Egyptians in Genesis 41: 55, ‘Go to Joseph’ (Latin: Ite Ad Ioseph), being a good father, St Joseph – the Terror of Demons will chase out evil; clean up our lax values and put the Mystical Body of his beloved Christ in order. The fruits of the Year of St Joseph for the Church, youth, jobs, marriages and vocations will be off the charts! For as the great doctor of the Church, St Bernard of Clairvaux taught, ‘Power is given to some of the saints to help in particular necessities; but to St Joseph power is given to help in all necessities.’

^{1, 2} Excerpts from the homily of Pope Benedict XVI on the Solemnity of St Joseph, Cameroon, 2009

Tena Conil is a pioneer Jesus Youth from Trivandrum, a Catholic formator, pro-lifer, media personality, husband and father of three. An Integrated Creative Director by profession, he recently relocated with family to India after over two decades in the UAE.