Josephying On The Feast Of St Joseph The Worker

Today, the Church celebrates the feast of St. Joseph the Worker, the diligent and faithful earthly father of our Lord Jesus and most chaste spouse of our Blessed Mother( "All generations will call me blessed").

Our local Church is named after Saint Joseph the Worker and my middle name chosen by my Catholic parents is Joseph. My recording studio in the basement is St Joseph Studios. So that's a lot of "Josephying."

He is to be honored on this day because of the way in which he faithfully obeyed the Lord and cared for the two most important people in salvation history, Jesus and his human mother, Mary. Did Joseph feel the weight of the world on his shoulders as he worked in his carpenter shop hoping to make enough money to support his young wife and child. Did he fully understand the words of the angel who visited him to reassure him of his role? Or Simeon's prophetic words in the temple on his presentation? I suspect he did and because of his obedience to God and care of the Lord and His Mum, he has a special role as intercessor and patron of the Church and families. Today I asked him to intercede for my family in a special way, that we would experience more of God's love and grace in our lives.

I'm going down to the studio to finish up a few more tracks on the new CD tonight. I will glance up at the little statue of Joseph holding the child Jesus in his arms and say, "Hey Saint Joseph

thanks for your prayers, keep'm coming!" (Yeah, I know the statue can't hear me)

Credit: witch-selena.blogspot.com

What Are The Implications Of The Immaculate Conception

A Protestant friend recently posted an excellent question on my last post regarding the Immaculate Conception. " What Are The Implications of The Immaculate Conception?"

I assume he is wondering, why is it important for Catholic spirituality to be bound by dogmatic assertion that Mary was sinless from her conception? This is something that has been discussed and debated for almost two full millenia by the Church Fathers, Doctors of the Church and other theologians. I confess that I have not actually given much thought to the implications for me personally. It just makes sense to me that since God came to us in the flesh and is sinless, the flesh that gave birth to His human flesh should be immaculate (sin macula) as well, (without sin.)

But how does this play out in the life of Catholics? Being a neophyte revert (just coming back into the Church 2.5 years ago after a 30 year exodus) I would benefit from hearing from other Catholics regarding the question posed from my Protestant blogger friend (Pilgrimsarbour) Do feel free to comment, my more learned Catholic friends!