As the Solemnity of St. Joseph falls every year during Lent, both Lent and his feast day are excellent reminders that there was sorrow as well as joy in St. Joseph’s life — and his reponse can aid our own Christian journeys.
“When Mother Angelica built the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, she had two great bronze doors constructed for the entrance to the church. One depicts the Seven Joys of Our Lady and one the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady. Some of the joys and sorrows of St. Joseph are the same as those of Our Lady,” Father Joseph Mary Wolfe of the Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word and EWTN chaplain, told the Register.
Father Wolfe further explained, “One of the reasons for having these joys and sorrows depicted on the doors is to convey the message that joys and sorrows are a part of all of our lives, just as they were for Mary and Joseph, but having ‘passed through’ the joys and sorrows of this life — symbolized in the great bronze doors — we enter into the beauty of heaven.”
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