San José, the husband of the Virgin

"Glorious San José, teacher of inner life" (Santa Teresa de Ávila)

It is curious, but when you think about the "great" saints and their influence on the Church, it is very easy to think of distingu., while the figure of San José happens as inadvertent.

And yet, it is surely the greatest saint after the Virgin, because, who will God put to take care of his son?Who do you trust a weight task, something you don't want to fail or setback?To a person of your maximum trust.The same thing I believe that God granted San José Dones and thanks as no other person ever (always after the Virgin, of course).

I do not know the holiness primarily in what one does, but in what one is.And as we normally put ahead of doing when we are, we simply tend not to see San José.His does not seem "significant".It seems to us almost that anyone could do, a simple family father.And maybe in that is the greatness of San José, and also ours.

Scratch a little and realize that the figure of San José is the most important and for consecrated and married.As no other can be, precisely because of the proximity to Jesus and Mary of which no other human being had.And because God does not leave one without gifts to perform the tasks entrusted to him.Rightly Leon XIII proclaimed him protector of the Church (on August 15, 1889, Pope Leo XIII wrote an encyclical, "Quamquam Pluries", presenting San José as a model of family life and working life, and Patronof the Universal Church.In times of social crisis and religious decay, the Pope asked the faithful to invoke San José together with the Virgin Mary.He left a prayer to the saint who yet a hundred years later he continues to pray after the rosary in many places.).

In short, you have to immerse yourself in the history and person of San José.We must meditate on it.We must be pleasant by his figure, unknown, silent, generous, sacrificed.And now someone is going to say, is it that Valtorta's work gives us real knowledge about the figure of San José (Jesus, Mary, etc..)?It is the most difficult question that is not easy to answer.We must say some words about the "private revelations".

First of all, it seems to me that this term, although it is used in the theology and documents of the Church for a long time, can lead to an important confusion that must be avoided.From there so much irritation regarding the "private revelations" that I understand perfectly.Because it seems that someone wants to supplant you the faith revealed in the only word of God, which is your Son (cfr.San Juan de la Cruz).

I go to the point.Suppon that God will make you see a gospel scene as if it were a movie in front of your eyes.Can that be called revelation?Well no.See exactly what happened, it is not revelation.Revelation is given by the Church and is accepted from the Church in faith, with the faith of the Church.Several events narrated in the gospels tell us about it.For example when Mary Magdalena sees the risen Lord and does not recognize him.She really saw the Lord, but did not recognize him until she was revealed: "Maria!".Or in the case of Emaus disciples;They really saw the Lord but did not recognize him until they were revealed.Faith is given by God about the preaching of the Gospel - "How will I understand it if nobody explains to me?" The Ethiopian responds to the deaconFelipe.

But the special graces that God can grant to certain people can confirm us in the faith received, they can help us understand it better.Above all I understand that they have all their meaning by preventing us from certain errors.God, owner of time and everything created, can show a past time exactly to strengthen our faith.The most difficult question is, does it really happen like this?First, there must be total absence of any difference with respect to what is narrated in the Gospels.Second, what is narrated must have an acceptable logic, it must be reasonable to be able to be believed.But reasonable from the perspective of tune with the work of God.In that sense, many narratives of Valorta's work regarding the customs of the Romans, Greeks, Jews, Galileans, Samaritans of the time are very realistic and credible.References in conversations with the Romans and Greeks regarding works of their philosophers of which only very educated people could have heard, cities appear that only experts in the field could know.How could she know decades before the start of excavations?At the time they made fun saying that Jericho was not a city as old as it is said in the Bible, until remains of that time were found.

In this post the choice of San José is narrated as husband of the Virgin.In the book "The silences of San José" mentioned in the last post,Father Michel Gasnier, or.F.Remember that “the apocryphal imagined a series of legends about the circumstances in which Maria's sponsorships were held, tenacious legends that have found such a credit over the centuries that there is no choice but to mention them briefly.According to those legends, the high priest would have summoned all the young people of David's house who aspired to marry Maria, inviting them to deposit on the altar their fell or cane, because the owner of the one who flourished would be the chosen one of the Lord.Naturally, it was the cane or the rod of José that flourished ... "

Because in the work of Valtorta the choice of San José coincides with this apocryphal story and for some this may be the reason for rejection of this work, at least at this point.First we have to remember that the apocryphal writings were rejected by the Church for having, one more others, not acceptable elements.As for example when they presented San José praying while Los Angeles worked instead of him.But it does not mean that everything narrated in the apocrypha is bad, such as the names of the virgin's parents that tradition and parents assumed as true.

Es curioso ver como alguna percepción espiritualista del Señor y la SagradaFamilia perduró a través de los siglos.For example in the movie Ben Hur presents the Lord meditating on the mountains leaving the job without doing.Without a doubt, this does not happen here.Both Saint Joseph, the Lord and the Virgin are presented as very hardworking and efficient people, worthy in dressing, very realistic and say, very human, although in the case of the Lord it shows his divinity on each page.Very God and very man at the same time, I feel God and, as LG says, you see that "he thought as a man, he worked with the hands of a man, loved with the heart of man".

But let's go back to the choice of San José as husband of the Virgin.For our modernist and positivist mentality (I said yes! Be sincere!, Naturally the reader knows that I exclude myself from that mentality) the fact that a cane flowers can cause us a laugh - mocking another way.However, let's take a look at the book of numbers, Chapter 5.We read a jealousy test there, that is, the husband who suspected that his wife cheated him could take her to the priest and force him to drink water ritually prepared by the priest.If his belly was swollen, he was guilty;If not, she was free and the husband could be calm.

These norms were left in writing to fulfill them (at the time), they are also the word of God, and the Israelites saw them as such and could proceed according to them.Later in the same book of numbers it consists as Aaron was confirmed as a priest doing God that his rod flourishes.For us there never existed Noah's boat, and the Israelites crossed the Red Sea for another place that is the same or red sea.Fue una buena estación de año, un charco se secó y los israelitas lo cruzaron.Say yes, what are we going to fool for.Nor God, owner of life, punished the firstborn of Egypt.Pharaoh became sad to see that his slaves left for once, and that was all.

The multiplication of breads?Another story, how will Jesus create the subject of nothing (is what really happens in the multiplication of breads and fish)?Because it is God, that is the answer.And so that no one occurs to that answer, neither think about it nor by chance, I remember that the communist propaganda apparatus explained the multiplication of the breads, based on the corresponding modernist explanations, in this way: “At that time, nobody went on a trip without taking some food, even if it is the improvised bags of their dresses.When sitting in a field, far from any population, they all took out what they had and shared it.That way Jesus taught them solidarity."

Without another particular, putting under serious and sincere criticism our modernist and positivist mentality, let's move on to the text of Valorta on the matter.