Icon of the Father: 33 Days to Entrustment to Saint Joseph (ePub)

In this book, I want to provide a complementary image, developing on the relationships that have deepened through the contemplative love and prayer that Sheltered Within Her Heart sought to open up. As that book sought to be only an aid to a deeper entrustment to Mary, and, with her, in her, and through her, to the immeasurable love of the Trinity himself, so this book seeks to be only an aid to growing in understanding of, and reverence for, Saint Joseph, and thus an invitation to deeper relationship with him. Through both of them, Mary and Joseph, we find the Trinity's life in a particular way made accessible to us, unveiled before us, and inviting us. What Mary illumines from the perspective of femininity, Joseph illumines from that of masculinity. Thus these two books can be understood as a diptych, a two-paneled image centered upon the hinge-point of Christ. Or rather, in fact, these two books and another, Responding to the Thirst of God: 40 Days to the Heart of Love, create a triptych that humbly seeks to illustrate the central realities of our human existence bathed in the light of God's grace, and to draw us to the center-point where all fulfillment is found in the everlasting embrace of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Joseph finds himself caught up in a mystery that so far surpasses him, and yet which cradles him with incredible tenderness and intimacy, and all the resources of his humanity are harnessed in sheltering and loving the Blessed Virgin and the Child conceived and born of her. Thus he is a custodian of the mysteries of God, and he invites all of us to "step into his shoes," to learn to love as he loved, and indeed also to entrust ourselves to his care, to be sheltered and loved, fathered and protected by him, just as were Mary and Jesus.