By: Sister Timothy Marie, O.C.D.
This year the first day of spring falls on March 19, 2020.  St. Joseph’s Day!  Spring brings a certain stillness to the earth. A waiting. A time of hushed expectancy. Seeds are planted and their growth is a quiet one – a hidden growth deep in the soil followed by the tender shoots stretching through the earth and reaching for the sun. We never see the actual growth. We only notice that today it is taller than it was yesterday.
St. Joseph’s Day is a great day for the beginning of spring. He is known as the silent saint. If you read about him in the Bible, you discover that his is a listening silence, an active silence. St. Joseph is a man of action, and his actions are rooted in an intense listening to discern the will of God and an equally intense response through the deeds that follow. Not a stressed-out intensity, a forced concentration. No, not that. His is a gentle and wholehearted response. Serene. Hopeful.
Perhaps you would like to make your Lenten journey this year with St. Joseph? That is what I’m going to do this Lent. And plant some seeds. Yes, plant some seeds, and watch their silent growth.  And take some time to reflect on the silent growth of God’s creation and the powerful silence of St. Joseph. Yes, that’s what I am going to do.
And you?
