“If the Father had looked at you with His ineffable gaze just once, it would suffice for you to be eternally grateful. Yet this gaze is constant and everlasting.” (p 143 from “Under the Gaze of the Father”)
As we continue to reflect on the life of St. Joseph, I read these words in my Holy Hour and I thought; what must have been the blessing of Joseph, during his life, to be under the constant gaze of the Father and the Son of the Most Holy Trinity? It is not a gaze of condemnation or of seeking the weakness and brokenness of our human condition, rather it is the gaze of love, joy and the searching gaze of hope and peace. “To live under the gaze of the Father is to receive His gift constantly; it is to possess Jesus, the end and precious fruit of this gaze…Thus your soul lives under the gaze of the Father, enveloped in His light, bathed in His fruitfulness, intimately and sweetly joined to Jesus.” (p 143-44) Archbishop Luis Martinez in writing these reflections for a retreat given to Blessed Concepción Cabrera de Armida shows us a deep and beautiful understanding of living in obedient love to God’s will in our life.

We know from Sacred Scripture how St. Joseph on following the command of the Angel turned towards the obedient love written upon his heart, taking the law and turning it into an act of trust as he accepted our Blessed Mother and the Child growing in her womb into his life. Under the gaze of the Father, this action of love turned his heart into a heart that could only expand in love. And this is our St. Joseph challenge…to expand our heart under the gaze of God.
We can often find this difficult as we struggle to see the person of Jesus in those around us (and in ourselves at times) with our doubts and fears blinding us to the greater possibility of life in gracious love. I can imagine Joseph, seeing Mary pregnant and choosing to see Jesus within her. Choosing to erase the doubts and fears, the humiliation and scandal of the moment and embracing the grace in front of him. I often think and place myself in this moment, the embrace followed by such joy and grace as the blessing of God’s gentle and fruitful gaze blazed a fire of love in the hearts of the Holy Family united and blessed.
Pope St. John Paul II reminds us in “Redemptoris Custos,” “From the beginning, Joseph accepted with the “obedience of faith” his human fatherhood over Jesus. And thus, following the light of the Holy Spirit who gives himself to human beings through faith, he certainly came to discover ever more fully the indescribable gift that was his human fatherhood.” (# 21)
As husband and earthly father we can imagine the gaze of St. Joseph becoming more and more the gaze of God the Father as he saw in Mary’s eyes the window into the Divine life growing in her womb. We can only imagine how his gaze stretched and re-stretched his heart each time the child Jesus looked into his eyes and Joseph encountered pure and joyful love. We are asked, like St. Joseph, to gaze into the windows of Mother Mary’s eyes and into the Divine eyes of love found in the Eucharistic gaze of our adoration of the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity placed upon the altar of worship.
In being obedient to God’s will, to God’s call to love, to God’s abundant blessings we are invited into caring for others as St. Joseph cared for his wife and the child Jesus. Fr. Meschler in his book, “The Truth About St. Joseph” reminds us of the humility accepting to care for another. “So, too, when St. Joseph’s authority was exercised, it was done in all humility. It has already been remarked that authority makes people humble. Who had a better heart than Joseph? His authority, moreover, extended to God and the Mother of God. Again, no one commands better than he who obeys exactly. Joseph was a man of perfect obedience and submissiveness to all properly constituted authority, but above all to God.” (p 63)
Our obedience to love humbles us into the grace of service. Jesus reminds us very clearly of the call to service and the blessings when he speaks these words to us, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” (Mk 10:45) Living our lives within the gaze of the Father is an invitation to life. The courage and humility to join in the life of grace and love is our constant challenge and the hope of unity with the Most Holy Trinity, the communion of saints and choirs of angels in heaven in our celebrations of holiness and life.
“To live under the gazed of the Father is to live a fruitful life in divine light and eternal love; it is to possess Jesus and to give Him to souls in the splendor of the divine gaze.” (p 146)
God Bless
Fr. Mark