Flower Of Carmel Hermitage at 200 May St, Enola, PA 17025 US - Meditation

Meditation The Interior Joseph Saint Joseph's virtues are those especially of the hidden life, in a degree proportioned to that of his sanctifying grace: virginity, humility, poverty, patience, prudence, fidelity, simplicity, faith enlightened by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, confidence in God, and perfect charity. He preserved what had been confided to him with a fidelity proportioned to its inestimable value. Bossuet makes this general observation about the virtues of the hidden life: "It is a common failing of men to give themselves entirely to what is outside and to neglect what is within; to work for mere appearances and to neglect what is solid and lasting; to think often of the impression they make and little of what they ought to be. That is why the most highly esteemed virtues are those which concern the conduct and direction of affairs. The hidden virtues, on the contrary, which are practiced away from the public view and under the eye of God alone, are not only neglected but hardly even heard of. And yet this is the secret of true virtue a man must be built up interiorly in himself before he deserves to be given rank among others; and if this foundation is lacking, all other virtues, however brilliant, will be mere display they will not make the man according to God's heart. Joseph sought God in simplicity; Joseph found God in detachment; Joseph enjoyed God's company in obscurity." Saint Joseph's humility must have been increased by the thought of the gratuity of this exceptional vocation. He must have said to himself: why has the Most High given me, rather than any other man, his Son to watch over? Only because that was his good pleasure. Joseph was freely preferred from all eternity to all other men to whom the Lord could have given the same gifts and the same fidelity to prepare them for so exceptional a vocation. Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.

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