On the first Friday of June, the month of the Sacred Heart in the Year of Saint Joseph, Father Jose Maria Alsina Casanova, Superior General of the Brotherhood of Children of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, sends ReL a reflection on the crucial role of Saint Joseph in the human formation of his son’s heart.
José María Alsina Casanova is also president of the Institute of the Heart of Christ
The Heart of Jesus, formed by Saint Joseph?
To speak of the Heart of Jesus is to speak of the Incarnation of the Son of God. “God loved us with a human heart” the Second Vatican Council tells us. That heart was physically formed in the bowels of Mary Virgin. Saint Joseph he does not physically engender Jesus, but he does communicate “spiritual life” to him as an educator and, therefore, shaper of his “human heart”.
Saint Thomas of Aquino recognizes that Saint Joseph, despite not having begot Jesus, nevertheless deserves the title of father for having fulfilled all parental functions. For the Angelic, the father is not only the beginning of generation and existence but also “of education and instruction.” This concludes that the role of Saint Joseph in the formation of the human Heart of the Son, that is, in the Incarnation, is not secondary, but rather that his presence has been fundamental. We present below 8 litanies of the Heart of Jesus in which the deep footprint that Saint Joseph has left in the formation of the heart of his son.
1.- Heart of Jesus, Son of the Eternal Father
That heart has been formed as a man as a son treating Saint Joseph. He spoke affectionately to him Abba with which he would later teach his disciples to pray and address the Father.
2.- Heart of Jesus, patient and of great mercy
Mercy and patience are virtues that are learned in the child as a result of knowing themselves loved in his smallness and weakness especially for the father. Jesus as a man “learned” to be patient and merciful, knowing that he was loved as a child by his father Joseph.
3.- Heart of Jesus, made obedient unto death
The gospel of Lucas that “Jesus lived in submission to his parents.” The obedience that led him to the Cross was exercised in perfection according to the instructions of his parents in Nazareth. It makes us shudder to think that the “let it be” of Gethsemane had been pronounced so many times seconding the mandates of Joseph.
4.-Heart of Jesus, pierced by a spear
It was a soldier who physically pierced the heart of Christ after he died. That pierced heart tells us how Jesus is affected by the joys and sorrows of men. Let’s think about how Jesus would be educated in his human sensitivity contemplating the virtue of Saint Joseph, learning to suffer evil and rejoice with good.
An interview with José María Alsina Casanova about the devotion to Saint Joseph in the year that the Church is consecrating him.
5.- Heart of Jesus, in whom the Father has been pleased
The son knows himself Son insofar as the Father enjoys having him as such. Jesus as a man had that paternal experience of seeing how Joseph he was filled with joy when he carried out his mission as a father. That word uttered by the Father in the Jordan, “This is my beloved Son in whom I have placed all my pleasure,” would resound in the Heart of Christ as an echo of the soft voice of his beloved father on earth, Good Joseph.
6.- Heart of Jesus, source of all consolation
The prophets spoke of the Messiah as the Comforter. Saint Ignatius of Loyola In his Exercises he says that Jesus in the Resurrection performs the “office of comforting”. ¿From whom would he learn to console but from his father José seeing how it was rest for his Mother Mary in days like the one in which he was lost in the temple?
7.- Heart of Jesus, our peace and reconciliation
Saint Thomas Aquinas says that one of the fruits of charity is peace. In Nazareth there is peace because that family loves each other. In the love that his father Joseph has for the Virgin, Jesus would learn the great lesson of peace and reconciliation that later with his Cross and Resurrection would fill the world with hope.
8.- Heart of Jesus, hope of those who die in You
It seems the most appropriate litany to put on the lips of Saint Joseph, good death pattern. According to tradition, Joseph would die accompanied by Jesus and Mary. Looking at Jesus, who would have rested so many times on his father’s lap, Saint Joseph at the moment of death would rest in peace with those words that the Son would later pronounce on the Cross: “Everything is finished.”
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