St. Joseph, St. Francis, and the Cross

St. Joseph at the Foot of the Cross

Michael Pakaluk

In graveyards you have seen ensembles of statues representing the Crucifixion, with Mary standing at the foot of the Cross on one side, and St. John on the other. And many paintings represent the same scene. It seems intended by the Spirit that we contemplate the Crucifixion in this way.

Now, we know that Mary in that scene is undergoing a kind of passive or vicarious crucifixion, in which we too are invited to share. She is as if God’s instrument for viewing the Crucifixion.

We know, too, that St. John represents the keenness and quickness of holy purity in attaining to the Lord, his innocence as if a mirror of the innocence of the Lamb. St. John also stands for you and me, because when Our Lord gave his mother to St. John (“Woman, behold your son,” John 19:26), we know that Jesus was giving her not simply to him but also to all of us.

The Lamentation of Christ by Simon Marmion, ca. 1473 [The MET, New York]

Therefore, although everyone had fled – and this is how Divine Providence works – Our Lord in His deepest suffering was not without succor, not without His friends. We abandoned Him: we might justly have been, from that time forth, excluded. But in His mercy, He so arranges the scene of His suffering and death that we are there nonetheless – in such a way that it remains in our power, with the greatest naturalness, to return there, and be there, to contemplate his Passion, simply whenever we wish. We now enjoy the great gift: of belonging there.

But if Mary is there with Him at the foot of the Cross, and really, the whole Church in her person and in the person of St. John, then, is St. Joseph not also there? I mean, not merely as one of us, but rather as the one whom “God made as if the father of the King and steward of the whole household.”

It seems incredible that he would not be there. Two figures are traditionally placed at the foot of the Cross in the ensemble: one a man and the other a woman. One might squint one’s eyes and imagine, vaguely and generally, that a husband and wife were looking on and encouraging their son, as if in a contest. Yet the father is missing: he has passed. Is that man there, who indeed is a “son,” also some kind of stand-in for him?

Do not get me wrong: I do not think that St. Joseph was at that time in Heaven. Therefore, he could not have been at the foot of the Cross in the way a saint can be present to us in a particular place, by way of apparition or even by distinct communication.

I agree, rather, with what seems to be the sententia communis among saints and doctors: They held that, although St. Joseph, like Mary, is now body and soul in Heaven, nevertheless, he did not attain this honor through as great a privilege as Mary’s. His body was not assumed into Heaven at the point of his passing. Nor did he attain to Heaven, like Enoch or Elijah, prior to the saving Passion, by the retrospective application of the merit of that great act of salvation.

Rather, I believe (as is the common opinion) that St. Joseph was one of those holy men who rose from their graves after the Passion. (Matthew 23:52) His body and soul went to Heaven, but only after the Passion.

That he was assumed afterwards into Heaven would explain why there is no grave nor any relics of St. Joseph, and not even any legends of relics. He was in “the Hades of the righteous,” a kind of limbo, awaiting liberation at the time of the Passion.  (Indeed, we can personalize Our Lord’s “descent into Hell” and regard it as including the intimate goal of rescuing his foster father.)

St. Joseph, then, could not have been present at the foot of the Cross in the manner of a saint. But there is something else – call it “intentional presence.” Readers who have lost a child or a spouse will know exactly what I am talking about. What is left is like a hole in the heart, which is actually never filled, and which we never want to be filled. (The absence is not incompatible, indeed, with happiness, but in the midst of happiness it remains as a testament to love – like the wounds of a martyr.)

People out of sentimentalism confuse “intentional presence” with supernatural life in Heaven. They feel that, if they still dwell on a deceased loved one, then that loved one must be in Heaven and present to them in the manner of a saint. Mustn’t their love have a living object, to whom they are as present, as this person is to them?

But this is a false inference. Only God’s love makes it so that a person enjoys beatitude. (Matthew 22:32) The presence of a loved one to living persons, in intention, is rather meant to lead them, in faith, to pray for that person’s soul.

My point is that the many, immediate “canonizations” we see of loved ones at funerals – or the claims of victorious athletes that “Dad was watching and cheering me on” – these, although not well-grounded, are testimonies to the reality and power of what I am calling the “intentional presence” of a deceased loved one.

But we can set it down, as a rule of Christian inference, that if something belongs to human nature, then it belongs more intensely and to a higher degree to Mary and to Our Lord in His human nature.  The bond that Mary had to Joseph was greater, not less, than what a devoted Christian wife has to her husband.  The human bond that Jesus had to Joseph was greater, not less, than what any devoted son has to a beloved father.  Joseph’s intentional presence to them, the hole left in their hearts, would have been far greater than what we experience.

He had to have been there, then, one might say, in his absence not in his presence.  He was there because they loved him and never ceased missing him. And just as mothers see one brother in another, or a son in a father, or a father in a son, when Jesus gave St. John to Mary, he invited her also to see St. Joseph in him, standing beside her, at the foot of the Cross.  And if we go to Joseph, we can see him there too.

 

Good Friday and the Stigmata

Fr. Raymond J. de Souza

Good Friday in St. Peter’s Basilica always has a Franciscan dimension.

The homily is not given by the Holy Father, but by the preacher to the papal household, by custom the only one permitted to preach to the pope. The office dates to the Counter Reformation (1555), when it was thought necessary to have someone to inspire (harangue?) the Roman Curia to personal and ecclesial reform. Since 1753, the office has been entrusted exclusively to Capuchin friars.

The current papal preacher, Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap, will deliver his 45th Good Friday sermon this year. His first was in 1980, upon his appointment by St. John Paul II. Reappointed by both Benedict XVI and Francis, he will turn 90 this year. In 2020, Francis made him a Cardinal (non-voting and not a bishop) in honor of his exemplary service. A collection of his Good Friday sermons was issued recently by Word on Fire, The Power of the Cross: Good Friday Sermons from the Papal Preacher.

The Franciscans are marking a series of octocentenaries in these years: 800 years since the approval of the Rule (1223), the first nativity scene at Greccio (1223), the stigmata of St. Francis (1224), and the death of il Poverello (1226). The stigmata are a fitting subject for meditation on Good Friday. St. Francis received the stigmata near the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (September 14th), which is to Good Friday what Corpus Christi is to Holy Thursday. From now until then, more attention will be paid to the significance of the stigmata.

St. Francis is held to be the first to receive the stigmata, physical wounds – painful and sometimes bleeding – of the Crucifixion of Jesus. There have been dozens of stigmatists since, the large majority of them female mystics. The two most famous are Francis and Padre Pio.

Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata by Giotto, c.1297-1299 [Louvre, Paris]

The word comes from St. Paul, “I bear on my body the marks (stigmata) of Jesus” (Galatians 6:17). Other translations use “brand marks,” suggestive of a cattle brand. The sacred wounds of Christ are our Christian brand.

Over the centuries there has been speculation about whether Paul the Apostle had the stigmata. Paul writes elsewhere of filling up “in my flesh” (Colossians 1:24) sufferings, but traditionally neither verse has been interpreted to mean the physical stigmata.

The Collect from the Franciscan Mass for the Feast of the Stigmata (September 17th) explains the spiritual meaning of the painful gift given to St. Francis:

Lord Jesus Christ, who reproduced in the flesh of the most blessed Francis, the sacred marks of your own sufferings, so that in a world grown cold our hearts might be filled with burning love of you, graciously enable us by his merits and prayers to bear the cross without faltering and to bring forth worthy fruits of penitence.

Why did Providence appoint St. Francis to receive the stigmata first? Perhaps it was his literalism; he began by repairing the fabric of the church of San Damiano when he heard the Lord speak to him: “Repair my church.” It would seem right that Francis would then imitate Christ Crucified in a physical way. Perhaps the reference to the “fruits of penitence” captures the reason, for Francis undertook formidable penances.

Cardinal Cantalamessa explained the importance of penance to Francis in his 1983 Good Friday sermon. How long has Cantalamessa been preaching? That year he referred to the 800th anniversary of Francis’ birth. In two years, will be the 800th of his death!

“On November 11, 1215, Pope Innocent III opened the Fourth Lateran Council,” preached Cantalamessa. “The pope insisted above all on the moral reform of the Church, and especially the reform of the clergy, a theme close to his heart. In fact, Innocent, as old as he was, said that he wanted to go throughout the entire Church – like the man clothed in linen with a writing case at his side of whom Ezekiel spoke – to mark the penitential Tau on the foreheads of those who, like him, sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in the Church and in the world.”

The prophet Ezekiel spoke of going “throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it.” (Ezekiel 9:4) Innocent spoke of this “mark” as a “Tau,” the final letter of the Hebrew alphabet written in Greek (Τ), to look like a Cross.

Cantalamessa notes the tradition that Francis of Assisi himself was in the Lateran Basilica that day, listening to Innocent.

“Whether the tradition is historical or not, it is certain that Francis knew the pope’s ardent desire and made it his own,” Cantalamessa continues. “From that day on, his preaching about penance and conversion intensified. He began to mark the sign of the Tau on the foreheads of those who were sincerely converted to Christ. The Tau, the prophetic sign of Christ’s Cross, became Francis’s seal with which he signed his letters and marked the doors of his friars’ cells.”

The biographical picture of Cardinal Cantalamessa on his website shows him in a chasuble marked by the Tau.

So devoted was Francis to the sign of the Cross (Tau), that St. Bonaventure would write, “He was given the mission from heaven to call men to sign and groan and shave their heads and put on sackcloth and ashes and imprint the sign of the Tau, the penitential cross, on the foreheads of all those that sigh and groan.” (Legenda Maior, 2)

The Sign of the Cross – the sign of Good Friday – is the most Catholic of all gestures. We trace the shape of the Latin “t” rather than the Tau, but the meaning is the same. And if the Christian is to be a sign of the Cross, does not Francis, that most literal-minded of saints, lead the way? He did not trace the sign of the Cross upon himself, but rather God traced the actual wounds of the Cross upon his flesh.

The Christian vocation to be “another Christ” was lived to such an extent by Francis that the very term alter Christus was applied to him early on. The stigmata were a physical manifestation of a spiritual reality witnessed by many.

We live in an age of “brands” for products, celebrities, politicians. There are two great brands in the world – the bitten Apple and the Cross, the Fall and the Redemption. Christians put the latter in their churches, offices, schools, homes. Francis had it inscribed in his body.

We adore Thee O Christ and we praise Thee;
Because by Thy Holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world.

You may also enjoy:

St. Joseph: Food for Thought Rev. Peter M.J. Stravinskas

The Empty Tomb or No Tomb? John M. Grondelski

 

Michael Pakaluk, an Aristotle scholar and Ordinarius of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, is a professor in the Busch School of Business at the Catholic University of America. He lives in Hyattsville, MD with his wife Catherine, also a professor at the Busch School, and their eight children. His acclaimed book on the Gospel of Mark is The Memoirs of St Peter. His most recent book, Mary's Voice in the Gospel of John: A New Translation with Commentary, is now available. His new book, Be Good Bankers: The Divine Economy in the Gospel of Matthew, is forthcoming from Regnery Gateway in the spring. Prof. Pakaluk was appointed to the Pontifical Academy of St Thomas Aquinas by Pope Benedict XVI.

Fr. Raymond J. de Souza is a Canadian priest, Catholic commentator, and Senior Fellow at Cardus.