Solemnity of Saint Joseph

Readings of the Day

About thirty years ago, we lost sight of our very young daughter in an airport. We turned around after gathering our bags at the security checkpoint, and suddenly she was gone. It’s hard to describe the panic that grips you in that situation.

We split up, my wife heading towards our gate, and me racing back outside to security. It turned out that a lady, apparently thinking she was being helpful, had asked our daughter where she was going, and walked her to the gate. All ended well for us after a few minutes that felt like hours.

Imagine what Mary and Joseph felt, one day out of Jerusalem, realizing their young son was not with them. Making the journey back, then searching for three days, they must have been gripped with dread the entire time.

“Why were you looking for me?” Christ asked of them when they discovered Him in the temple. It wasn’t that Jesus was hiding, or that He did not want to be found. Instead, He seems to say: “You should have known where to find me!”

We, too, seek Jesus – not with the sense of panic that Christ’s earthly parents must have felt, but with a longing that urges us, and a gratitude that compels us, to seek and to serve Him. Members of the Society of St Vincent de Paul are especially called to see Christ’s face and His suffering in the neighbors we serve.

We don’t have to imagine He is there. He told us that whatever we do for one of these least brothers of His, we do for Christ Himself.

He told us where to find Him. What is left for us is simply to go to him. In the faces of the hungry, the thirsty, the homeless, the prisoner, and the stranger, He is there: the one that redeems us, the one that transforms us, the one that awaits us.

Timothy P. Williams is the National Director of Formation for the National Council of the United States, Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

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