Getting to Know St. Joseph this Advent

[Music] welcome to Advent my name is father mark toups a priest of the Diocese of Houma tibideaux way down in south Louisiana the most important thing you need to know about me is not where my priesthood is but where my heart is and that's an Advent Adam it is my favorite time of the year and I want to welcome you to this sacred season and a conversation with two of my best friends whether Josh Johnson is a priest of the Diocese of Baton Rouge a new father Josh when he was in the seminary has made the privilege of walking together as his spiritual director and I love his heart I love his love for God and I can't wait for you to meet him and see that in our conversation today with us also his sister Miriam James Hyland who is a sister the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity and for me I just experienced Mary in her presence her heart her smile and I can't wait for you to meet her in our conversation [Music] well welcome to our conversation in this Advent season my name is father Marc I want to introduce you to two very good friends of mine father Josh and sister Miriam welcome to the conversation and joining us as we enter into not only the season of Advent but Advent is a there's a time of year where a lot of us have a lot going on so as you join us I just want to meet you where you are with whatever is in your heart because for me one of the things that has really been an influence in I think my inability to really receive Christ that Christmas is just the fact that Christmas is in December and there's a lot of other things going on in December it's it's it's full its busy and I think if there's one thing that characterizes my life conversations that I had with my family is just the word busy and in December yeah I find Lynn Advent to be the two busiest seasons because we have confessions almost every night we have the missions going on in the church and then you also have things going on out there in the world with the busyness of the culture and the and the shopping and preparing for Christmas it's so crazy and so hectic it's so noisy during this time of the year oh yeah and your average person has holiday parties they have shopping and things like that and you talk to people and they're like yeah I want to spend Advent and quiet I just don't know how and I can't like I'm so busy I can't take anything off my schedule kids have Christmas pageants and it just feels overwhelming to a lot of people yeah I think that for so many people there's the desire for the silence what you just said but at the time of year when you're you've got most on your plate you also have the desire to take something off your plate and and if that's where you are like praise God we just want to welcome you into the conversation because I think that if we're gonna find God we have to find God with us in the midst of where we are right and not only I think is it just the pace of life faster and there's more I think competing for our time but in that there are a couple other things that I have learned as I look at my life that I learned walking with with Joseph this year and the first is comparison oh I think a lot of people whether they know it or not might get kind of hooked with comparison at this time you either I have more this year or less this year than I had the previous year or I can provide for my family and I'm comparing myself to other families but I think comparison is one of those things that is really in people's lives at this time of year some of us have real brokenness and our families and so it's easy for us to compare our families to what other families look like or what we have or what we want with like other people on social media or something so it can be really people don't talk about that very often but it can be really challenging you know when you compare yourself to the illusion of what other people have or you know and comparing your life to what it used to be many marriages have failed our people have passed away and so on there can be that comparison of where I was back then and where I'm at now and it just brings about some some pretty dark seasons for people and what ought to be and what could be the most joyful time of the year prepared for Christ yeah I can't tell you how many times will you know I probably have the privileged spot at mass of being able to behold a congregation there and one of the more tender things for me is just to kind of watch people like during the first reading and you can see that people are settling kind of getting quietly but for the first time since they had quiet time last week and you can see people sometimes in their own hearts looking at other families and comparing where they are in reality to what they think other people are experiencing in their life and that's the tough part about comparisons you use the word perfection earlier we're all it seems like in comparison we're taking our reality and comparing it to something which does not exist our image of their perfect family or the our image of their their perfect marriage or whatever and you're always gonna lose in comparison because you're never comparing reality to reality it's always where you are in that lens to to some image or to some Mirage of where you think other people are you had a friend of mine she came in we were hanging out one day and she was saying I'm struggling right now because I'm looking at this other person and that friend was amazing their family's awesome that the husband is great the kids are so obedient and they just love their mom and and in my marriage in my family life she's really in a bad place right now and then I was friends with that other person so the other person comes and sees me that day were hanging out having coffee and she's like oh man apologize my family's the worst in the world and I was thinking it's so amazing how we can have this image of other people's last and we have no idea that the reality is is we're all in this struggle together I think the other thing that's there with that is expectations or as we as we compare our families to other families or our year to other people's you know lives I think expectations are a big part of this time of year right so we expect our family to act a certain way and for many of us we probably just experienced that at Thanksgiving or or in life never meet your expectations because oftentimes we set those expectations in the bar of perfection and none of us are perfect but I think people also deal with expectations at this time of year and I think it's just important to meet people there because it has an influence over their receptivity at Christmas it does and I think it's expecting what we where we wanted to be by now or kind of what happened last year or this year or like you said I'm wanting our family to be different or wanting our lives to be different and so it just it just in many ways can breed resentment really it's instead of like bringing hope and joy it brings like a lot of resentment of like how come I'm not here yet or how come why is God allowing this in my life so it can be hard it can be really hard for people and a lot of times people don't talk about it because you feel like you should be happy and it's Christmastime like we should totally be happy and then but for a lot of people it's just a struggle like the Advent season of Christmases is a struggle yeah they need to reverence their desires yeah um and just invite them and encourage them to to make the distinction between a desire which is good and beautiful and true we must bring to the servicing must bring this to the light and having the expectation of life turning out exactly as we want our life to turn out right because we don't always know what's best I thought my life I've had so many desires and then I got in trouble whenever they became expectations and I think it has to be this way and I don't know what's best for me and then quite often when it didn't go my way win another way that might have seemed to be more difficult but it ended up being much better for me and people I walk with and to trust that God is real and the trust they got is actively involved in our lives and that when I expose my desire to the Lord when I tell God hey this is what I really longed for that God in some way is gonna respond to me and God in some way is gonna bless me maybe not with what I expected or when I expected or how I expected but with wedding is gonna actually bless me in my own life and and and I don't know what brought you into this conversation but maybe you know what it's like to be busy and if that's what's going on in life then I think this is gonna be a great Advent for you if we could just find God in the midst of that right if you find yourself with comparison or expectation or anything else going on here's the good news we're just gonna start there and we're gonna allow the Lord to be with us in the ordinary circumstances of life what a welcome you to a conversation about a great resource that can help you it's entitled rejoice Advent meditations with Joseph it's an opportunity to prepare for a person the person of Jesus Christ rather than just a day and that's that's an important part of the conversation as we talk about why we're in this conversation because I think many of us know what it's like to get ready for the day of December 25th I'm gonna look at my my own experience of being with my family that we're always getting ready to go somewhere or someone that's coming to the house or there's always lots of food it just seems like it's so easy to get focused on the day of this summer 25th and if we're all we're doing this focus on the day then our lives gonna be no more changed on December 26th than they were on December 24th and we can miss the person of Jesus Christ in the midst of all that and as we are preparing for the day of Christmas December 25th we're doing so so we can encounter Jesus in the midst of that experience and no better way for us to prepare for the person of Jesus Christ this Advent then with the person that God chose to teach Jesus when he was a kid said to image fatherhood for Jesus on behalf of God the Father and to protect and to love and to lead Mary Joseph a lot of us don't necessarily have the type of relationship with Joseph that we might have with with Jesus Joseph is is one of those people in maybe your life but certainly in my life that that seems to be hidden I had a very distant experience of Joseph when I was a kid he he didn't look like the man that my dad was and my dad was doing carpentry work all the time and Joseph had a lily and that didn't look like what my dad looked like you know it if that's what you're hungry for if that could bless you this Advent then I think it's going to be a beautiful gift there's a journal that takes a day by day you're gonna walk with Joseph and during the Advent season and get to know him and the journal is packed with some really beautiful meditations also the favorite one for me is this the image of Joseph and that conversation that we we know they had when of course the Gospel of Matthew says that he decided to divorce her quietly and then he changes his mind obviously things change in his life because of the angel coming to him and this the the the image of Joseph with Mary looking her in the eye looking at her heart and saying hey I'm not going anywhere I think what would popped up in my heart as I was praying with that meditation was just what's it like for a man to be in the presence of profound holiness like sister Mary Lou here right and and and and for a man not to run or to hide from it like for Joseph to be invited into Mary's heart which was pure and to be expected to love her on her terms to be expected to love her with that level of holiness that to me as a guy I read that requires the most courageous heroic love that than any thing that I think I've ever seen in my life so just the experience of Joseph love and Mary on her terms is what really kind of struck my heart well I love the journal it was so incredibly beautiful Father and then it came from your heart and your own eye kind of response it like who is Joseph and and like you I had kind of just you know different misconceptions of him and he you know he was always prayers older and kind of you know really didn't understand that it wasn't until I saw a movie several years ago where the the lead actor as Joseph was cast as this young handsome funny man and I'm like of course of course that's what he would have been like and I that totally changed my paradigm of Joseph and then incorporating the journal there were several times that was pierced so deeply by the meditations I would just weep and I loved the revelation of who he is not as a character are not as a one-dimensional figure but as a person yeah who is a man like us you know and just somebody who lived life who gave his heart and but the revelation of him is being totally masculine and dedicated and just and not having all the answers but willing to go there and his love for Mary and you know it just as a woman I you you can entrust your heart safely to that kind of masculinity and I really believe you know we talk about men having a de voz a devotion of st. Joseph an amen but so do women we need that too and how he protects and provides and how he comes close and how he allows you to fully flower it just was really incredibly beautiful in such a strong tender way I loved every second of it it was outstanding yeah the image of Joseph as a younger man handsome I thought it was also pretty profound that you were able to bring out in his journal for the mark the interior life of st. Joseph and how it was his relationship with the word his relationship with God that it really determined how he responded to the events of his life and in his relationship specifically with the Virgin Mary right we know that right he didn't think she cheated on him like some people have proposed in the past um but specifically when you were able to bring out that Joseph was a just man and that a just man of course the Word of God and the Old Testament Scriptures is a man who was rooted in the sacred scriptures and so I've never prayed with his interior life but it really reveals to me just the need to go deeper in the word as well so that I can also respond to the events of my life with the sacred scriptures on my heart and in my tongue well and in the ordinary to because he's a man of the ordinary and most of us fear the ordinary where I was looking for the extraordinary but he's a man who lived life well in the ordinary and I was like oh I need to learn from that yeah especially this time of year yes where for a lot of us things are extraordinary the house looks a lot different and and maybe our rhythm is different but what so much is the ordinary it's standing in line to get groceries yes it's it's cooking a lot if it's all the hidden things that a lot of us get preoccupied with at this time of year but if we can find God there in the ordinary then I can transform our experience of getting ready for Christmas this guy wants to permeate our entire day right he doesn't want us to just have a one time and then compartmentalize him over here but he wants for that for that one time or whatever it is to go throughout the rest of our day like it did with Joseph and he was able to bring his relationship with the word into every aspect of his life yeah what's fascinating to me is just the beauty of God we all had the same meditations and yet because of the way that God used those meditations those words to speak to our particular heart like we all had different things and kind of like stayed with us and and imagine if God could do that in your life right imagine if this Advent you were able to one day at a time get to know Joseph in a different way in a more personal way regardless of where you're starting with Joseph whether you know him well or maybe you don't know anything about Joseph imagine if this Advent the Holy Spirit could direct your heart in prayer so that you could get to know him and a more vibrant and a more very beautiful way whether it's in the ordinary sister Miriam was talking about whether it's interior life as father Josh was talking about our weather if so that he loved Mary the things that got stuck on my heart but imagine if this Advent that was available for you and you were able to pray your way through that I can't tell you how many times I've had conversations with people who longed to know God over a more personal way but they just don't know how to pray and and that's the gift of rejoice Advent meditations with Joseph to help you in your own experience of prayer and one of the things that is available for you and that I think a lot of us really tasted in beauty in the meditations is the gift of what we call imaginative prayer that's where we use our spiritual senses that the Lord has blessed us with and we give God permission to use our interior life our interior spiritual senses to to draw us into a scripture scene so that we're there in it's experiencing in a very personal way some of the grace that God has in store for all of us if we would just allow him to guide our imagination you might say in fact what would be a beautiful gift is if we could just maybe pray together right now and I want to invite the two of you to pray with me and what about you to join us in prayer right now so that we can in some way allow the to bless us and so that right now we can encounter Joseph and Mary just as you can and rejoice Advent meditations with Joseph so how about we pray together right now in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit amen only father we thank you for the gift of life we think if we're the fact that you can do you measurably more in our life than we could ever ask or imagine thank you for the gift of Jesus Christ's the gift of Christmas his presence with us even now and we thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit's the love and we asked the Holy Spirit now to you and live in our imagination to guide it to you about us to begin and ask the Holy Spirit to show you Mary maybe just her face remembering Mary was Jewish middle eastern might be the skin tone because of where she was born and she was her hair and the curls that may have been there imagine Mary on the donkey as she is being led from Nazareth to Bethlehem imagine those eyes Mary's eyes pure almost piercing watched with gentleness [Music] Marius is eight and a half months pregnant and both of her hands are on the womb caressing her son she sways rhythmically just gently back and forth on that donkey imagine Joseph just a few feet away ahead leading with his hand gently holding that rope that connected him to the donkey and there into his his wife oh the spirit show us Joseph what did he look like Jewish Middle Eastern is skin tone his hair Josef's eyes his face Joseph look like in your imagination imagine Josefa walking just ahead of Mary as he leads them to Bethlehem [Music] Joseph looks ahead as he sees the Sun beginning to sets he already has a spot on the road that he wants to stop for the night Jesus stops walking in stops the donkey and forever reverent Joseph lifts his arms up and Mary very gently but yet with safety and allows herself to be guided into his embrace off the donkey and for a moment as he holds her their eyes lock [Music] Mary loves those eyes she feels safe in his arms [Music] Joseph loves his wife and gently brings our feet to the ground help sir take a seat near their camp spot Joseph crops up a few small twigs a branch or two and makes a small fire to keep his his wife warm you can almost hear the crackle of the fire you can always you can almost feel just a gentle warmth now radiating from that fire [Music] Joseph looks at Mary and she's just smiles [Music] he offers her dinner bread a little goat cheese little olives [Music] and I just sit near that fire with each other [Music] imagine Joseph looking at Mary and Mary looking at Joseph Mary says to Joseph I wonder what he's gonna look like Joseph looking at Marian asking a winner was gonna sound like it's just a joy of the two of them kind of caught in a moment together and and all of a sudden they they both turn and their gaze and very gently you actually find yourself there you are there sitting around that same fire you with them and they're looking at you Mary looks at you [Music] Joseph looks at you the mayor looks at Joseph [Music] you know us feel against the the safety of Mary in Joseph's presence [Music] what's it like to be there what's in your heart right now at that fire with them Joseph looks at you with the purity and the stress and the reverence that is him and he asks you what do you want from God this Christmas what do you say what's on your heart what are you really really what for Christmas give you a few seconds to stay there there with the question and there with Mary and Jesus and Joseph [Music] [Music] well just want to welcome you back and I know that every time that we pray every time that we encounter the Lord it's always personal and if that's where the Lord has you then just want to say welcome welcome back but even if the Lord might have you in a different spot just kind of stay there but imagine imagine if that that's what Advent was like for you if you were able to pray in that way to meet Joseph in that way imagine how prepared we would be for the person of Jesus Christ at Christmas just like they were and so welcome back and as we re-engage in conversation I'd love to hear what was in your heart as we were prayin is often times I heard music and so as we were leaning into the meditation and specifically spending time around the fire its Jesus and Mary and Joseph she's this song there's no place I'd rather be just kept playing over and over again there's no place I'd rather be than here in your arms then hearing your love and and then whenever Joseph asked a question what I want for Christmas I just said I want Jesus yeah I just want to be the Lord I've tried so many other false idols at this point and walk toward eternity and they've never satisfied as good as other things as other people as other places have been in my life there's nothing that compares to just being with Jesus and so that's why I'm resting right now is in that that desire that that he also desires to be with me as well that he just does I he just wants to be with me too we want to be with each other yeah yeah I think for me you know and Joseph asks what are you up for Christmas I'm like this like the tender communion is hmm it's a place where your heart rusts I mean I would call that home like being at home like in the deepest part of us we want to be home where you don't have to live with self-defense mechanism is our fear that somebody's gonna reject you where you're I could feel my heart opening like oh this is what authentic transparency and vulnerability and what real community looks like and it can fill you at the same time with a pain of eight because I mean I have so many relationships but that doesn't happen where you feel like you have to be somebody else or you have to still like that taste of authentic community and think that's that's authentically human and I'm like I just want to stay that I want to live be able to live at that level of openness of receptivity of honesty of vulnerability and it's like that's the piece I think all of us are looking for you know Joe into that word home I so was there at the fire with Mary and Joseph I was actually struck with the way that he embraced her off the donkey and just him holding her and at the same time looking at her yeah just the security and the safety that she would have felt and just a longing and my heart that that I might love people and I might love the church the way that Joseph loved Mary like then that was what when they look he looked at me and says what do you want for Christmas and I was like I need to be more like you and I need to be more like your son but I'll take one step closer by by kind of being more like you and and and just yeah just a desire to love as as he loved and as purely as he loved and it's it's our hope that whatever your prayer was like that you have an awesome Advent rejoice Advent meditations with Joseph just said it's our gift to help Joseph become a human being rather than a character and you said that earlier and I just think it's important that for so many of us we have Joseph out there that maybe Joseph comes in here and if if Joseph can become more personal in your life if Joseph can become more they might say the person who walks you through the pilgrimage of Advent just like his if he led Mary then then that would be a real beautiful gift and that's what's available to you in the gift of what we are presenting to you in rejoice add meditations with Joseph my prayer for you is that Joseph is no longer just distant or a character that he's a person that is in your life and imagine that the very person that God chose to teach Jesus about so many things is a very person that's available to you this Advent that might teach you how to prepare for a person and that actually might walk with you in the Advent journey I pray that you I have been filled with grace I pray that you get to know Joseph in a very beautiful way that you fall in love with Jesus in a more intimate way and we look forward to being with you in the Advent journey god bless you

Channel: Ascension Presents

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Keywords: advent, rejoice advent meditations, advent meditation, st. joseph, pre advent, advent 2019, advent reflections, fr. mark toups, sr. miriam, sr. mirian james, sr. miriam james heidland, fr. josh johnson, fr. josh, advent journal, best advent ever, christmas, christmas season, holy family, joseph, jesus mary and joseph, nativity, rejoice advent, rejoice advent meditations with joseph, fr. toups, season of advent, get to know st. joseph, getting to know st. joseph, mary, jesus

Id: iT8OvTdWlOQ

Length: 31min 46sec (1906 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 25 2019