Before I continue the meditations on St. Joseph over the coming days, I would like to give a few words of comfort, to strengthen us in the days and weeks and months which will challenge us in ways that we could not have imagined possible, in the closing months of 2019.

Yesterday we celebrated the great feast of The Annunciation, which in the Middle Ages was the beginning of the New Year. It seems rather dissonant to hear the words of the Archangel as the Corona Virus sweeps its devastating arm across the entire globe with the exception of Antarctica. However, we can feel something of the what Mary felt, when having been told that she would be the Mother of the Messiah and the Mother of God, Gabriel told her that nothing is impossible to God. Yes, Mary was being told something wonderful, but her perfect humility must have made Gabriel’s announcement seem astonishing. However, with his words ringing in her ears “for nothing is impossible to God”, Mary would have experienced the Father’s care for her, and the warmth of the Holy Spirit invading her soul.

With God all things are possible, and St. John tells us that perfect love casts our fear. So as we hear disconsolate Catholics bemoaning, quite understandably, the fact that they cannot receive the Sacraments, that the churches will be closed in the main, and that the great Triduum, the Holy Week Services, will not be held this Easter, we must remember that God loves us more than we love him, that Jesus Our Lord loved us so much that he died for us, and would do it all over again, then we can begin to gain a true perspective of what is happening.

Yes, it is terrible that in Spain carers are abandoning elderly people suffering from the Corona virus in the Care Homes. Yes, it is heartrendingly sad when we hear of a little five year old boy, suffering from Coronavirus, saying to his mother as she leaves him in the hospital “Will I die?”. Yes, it is extraordinary to think that Western men and women, so accustomed to comfort and entertainment, freedom, and sadly, wholesale licence, suddenly find these things taken away from them. The sense of deprivation and the accompanying fear must be quite shocking for these materialistic people. However, there is hope.

That hope is that indestructible belief and trust that God is so good and loving, and all that we have to do is say with Mary, our mother and our joy, “be it done unto me according to thy word” With the trust of a child holding its mother’s hand or being carried in its father’s arms, we must sink into the eternal embrace of God. Held in the Father’s everlasting arms, our heads resting on Our Lord’s breast and hearing the beat of his most Sacred Heart, and warmed by the fire of the Holy Spirit, all will be well, whether we live of die. God will bring great good out of these terrible times. All we have to do is say a resounding Yes to all that he sends us.

Fr. Stephen