At a time
when many people were rejoicing in my ordination to the priesthood, albeit for
myriad, sometimes competing reasons, I had to respond to one invitation after
another of being asked to “come [somewhere] and say Mass.” “People need to see you,” was the usual theme
of the invitations. In the spring of 1973, the oddest invitation of that ordination
year came from a nun who was teaching at the old north St. Louis Catholic grade
school, St. Bridget, in the shadow of the Pruett-Igoe Housing projects. The nun
asked me to come to the grade school and preside at a Mass for 8th-graders,
on March 19, the Feast of St. Joseph. The invitation would have been sufficient,
in that simple statement; but as is often the case, she could not leave well
enough alone. “If you can, please emphasize the role of ‘St. Joseph the Worker’
– most of these children don’t know the value of hard work; since they don’t
see many people with jobs.”
It was
enough to make me believe in God. Either that or walk away from it all. So I said, yes. At the beginning of the homily, I asked the
students if they knew why Joseph was a saint.
The usual fidgeting and glancing eyes were the immediate response. Finally, I said, I think we must understand
that many people have focused on the fact that Joseph was a carpenter. But we
don’t know any more than that. “Is this not the carpenter’s son?” is all we are
told in scripture. We don’t know if he was a great, mediocre or merely
competent carpenter. So I don’t think that is the reason for his obvious sanctity. I think the real reason we honor Joseph with
the title of “Saint,” is that, when his girlfriend told him she was pregnant,
and it wasn’t his child, he did not panic. He did not reject her. He did not
turn her over to the authorities in the temple.
He accepted her. He protected her. Because he listened to the voice of
God which came to him in his dreams.”
Further, I said to them, “lots of people will say that many of you don’t
know the value of hard work. But I know better. You have seen your fathers and
mothers and uncles, aunts, grandfathers, grandmothers and neighbors, get up
every day and hustle, one way or another, to bring something into your home.
And they struggle, out of love for you and your family. They work as hard as
they are able to. But it is their determination to remember that all children
are gifts from God that makes us admire them and love them.”
As soon as
I was finished with the Mass, a young woman asked me if I was going to come
back soon. The nun who had invited me moved as quickly as the wind and came to
the front of the room and told the students that she regretted that I wouldn’t
be able to come back to the school, since I had such a busy schedule.
Two years
later, when I was doing a Mass at St. Francis Xavier High School on the St. Louis
University campus a young woman walked up to me and said, “You don’t remember me,
but I remember you. You came to our school two years ago and said Mass. I
remember what you told us…”
Thank you, Sister.
Today, just
before the Feast of St. Joseph ends, I am offering this poem from the past.
Like the other poems about Joseph that appear in “The Sankofa Muse” (entries
#31 and #39), the poem supplies words from the mind of the most silent of
saints. The dreams, the
responsibilities, the spirit-capture that changed his life. And the eyes of the
child and the child’s mother: The man
listened beyond what was known and changed his world; and ours.
“I Grew to
Trust the Dreams”: Christmas: 1984
"When
he arose, he took the young child and his mother
by night,
and departed into Egypt."
there
have been no further dreams no other
warnings
no more men
who come crowding out the air pushing
through a
cloud of whisperings no
no dreams
come that last poised moment when
I would
reach to turn my world towards what
is now
forever
shattered
I grew to trust the dreams
this
boy and her the mother
all I learned
(what to need
to accept oh to carry into hiding)
that night
when every child in the world began to die
the
dreams the dreams suddenly vanishing
I cannot be
blind to the blood without them
I cannot
bind my fear without them
I cannot
mute the howling wind
when
I hold
this child he grows heavy I look at him
touch him
press my lips to his eyes his ears
his
hands his heart
oh he is my dream replaced
nightly every child I see is him and every dream
his
life will be filled with
the telling of the day
the children
began to die
you must live an anointing
you must
bring them back
haunting my
dreams have found their flesh
I feed you
child a sea a field a night sky of
children
blenching into silence
grow heavy with them
