Tuesday, April 1, 2008

St Joe

Today at the convent, we celebrated the Feast of St Joseph. Many calendars had this transferred feast yesterday and the Annunciation today, but when in the convent - do what the sisters tell you! I always find preaching to the sisters a challenge. It's not as if the usual congregational needs are reflected in the convent. I don't think I can get away preaching about the need to 'give our lives more to our faith.' For crying out loud - they have taken vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity and perhaps even more difficult - they live in community and work on a consensus-based government style. But it is nice to preach to a different community and they seem (nuns wouldn't lie would they?) to enjoy/appreciate my preaching.

Today for St Joseph, I found myself thinking about our parish hall. There's a nasty little habit we (and I mean all of us) have that is demonstrated in schools, homes, and churches. In the parish hall - not every one pushes back the chairs when they leave a table. Not everyone puts their coffee cup in the dishwasher. In the church, not everyone takes their bulletin home, and just leaves it in the seat. In the bathrooms, not everyone can make the difficult shot of putting paper towels in the trash can (I have a similar problem of putting clothes in the clothes hamper). We believe - or in many cases we know - that someone else will take care of it. Don't we pay someone to do this for us? Isn't there someone who's job this is? It'll get done.

Ours is a society of passing responsibility or assuming that others will pick up where we leave off. "If I don't help - someone else will." Name the societal ill - name your issue - and we can find large masses just knowing that someone is taking care of the problem. And if anyone had the chance to say - this is not my job...this is not my responsibility - was it not Joseph?

The child inside Mary's womb was not his. I think he was pretty sure of that. He had every societal right to dismiss her quietly as he planned and he had every societal right to dismiss her loudly! It wasn't his responsibility. But if Mary is the patron of the church in saying "yes" to God - then Joseph is the patron of the church for assuming responsibility - for stepping up.

I am responsible for you. You are responsible for me. Every child (or adult) we baptize - we take vows in that effect - I am responsible for YOU. The homeless person is our responsibility. The addict is our responsibility. The lost executive is our responsibility. The trouble makers are our responsibility. The earth and that is in it - is our responsibility. Even if it's not our job. Even if it's not our business - wait a minute - God's business is our business, right? Our business should be God's business, right?

It is. It is.

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