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    Joseph: A Guiding Light
    Joseph: A Guiding Light
    Joseph: A Guiding Light
    Ebook113 pages1 hour

    Joseph: A Guiding Light

    By Sister Louise Sweigart cgs

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    About this ebook

    Joseph, the young carpenter of Nazareth has lost his heart to the maiden he has seen coming from the well. Who is this girl? He is expected to marry. He dreams of fatherhood. But he has a secret, which fills him with conflicting emotions. How is he to reconcile his desires; and will she accept him?

    You may feel you know Joseph; but have you ever tried to plumb the depths of his heart to tremble with his love, to tingle with his hopes, to be enmeshed by his fears?

    Wouldnt you like to meet his friends? And what of this maiden who holds his heart so captive? Have you ever pondered on his ecstasy when she accepts his proposal, and his agony when confronted by evidence of betrayal?

    Although much is fictional, and sometimes based on accepted legends, the customs, setting and key events are true. Come, and meet this couple whose hidden lives of fidelity to God have forever changed the course of history.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherInspiring Voices
    Release dateOct 21, 2011
    ISBN9781462400089
    Joseph: A Guiding Light
    Author

    Sister Louise Sweigart cgs

    Sister Louise, cgs, is a Contemplative Sister of the Good Shepherd. She presently resides in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, where she spends her days in prayer, community activities and hobbies. Whatever her occupation, Saint Joseph has been her companion during her 71 years of religious life.

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      Book preview

      Joseph - Sister Louise Sweigart cgs

      Joseph

      A Guiding Light

      Sister Louise Sweigart, cgs

      inspiringvoicesblack.ai

      Copyright © 2011 Sisters of the Good Shepherd

      Province of Mid-North America

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      Inspiring Voices books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      Inspiring Voices

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.inspiringvoices.com

      1-(866) 697-5313

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Scripture taken from the New American Bible

      ISBN: 978-1-4624-0008-9 (e)

      ISBN: 978-1-4624-0007-2 (sc)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2011936674

      Printed in the United States of America

      Inspiring Voices rev. date: 10/18/2011

      Contents

      Acknowledgments

      Introduction

      Part I

      Chapter I

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Part II

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Part III

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Part IV

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      To my brothers and sisters in God’s family, whose royal ancestors gave the world this chosen man, Joseph.

      Acknowledgments

      I am deeply indebted to Father Jerry Grant, CSsR., of St.Johns, Newfoundland, now with God, who was the first to give me encouragement. After reading the first part, he said, emphatically, Get this story written!

      I also thank with all my heart Rabbi Albert Lewis of Grand Rapids, Michigan, who aided my research, and added warm wishes for my journey.

      I am happily grateful, beyond words, to Brien Master, a post-graduate student from NKU, who has given so generously of his time and expertise, never letting me lose heart and abetting every effort, keeping my spirit high with hope. To Sister Mary Joy, RGS, whose assistance with the final editing was invaluable; and to all my friends who kept encouraging me to have Joseph published, I send a warm thank you!

      Nor could it have been done without the dedicated staff at Inspirational Voices, especially Jeff Murray, Amanda Parsons and all who partnered with me every step of the way; to each and all, my heart’s deepest and prayerful gratitude.

      To my own Beloved, without Whose guidance I never could have ventured such an undertaking, I say

      Blessed be His Holy Name!

      Introduction

      Why Joseph?

      About Mary, his spouse, there has been for centuries an unceasing flow of literature and poetry, art and music, and rightly so. Mary is the heaven-chosen mother of the God-man, Jesus.

      Joseph, on the contrary, while named Patron of the Church, and honored in a limited number of writings, is mostly relegated to scenes of the Nativity. He certainly has a right to be there, but it does not begin to portray the greatness of the man. The Child Jesus grew and became strong and advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man under Joseph’s fatherly care and tutelage.

      It is true, we have no words spoken by Joseph, but his actions, as related in the Scriptures, speak volumes of the man he was. Surely he loved Mary as no other man has ever loved a woman because of who he was and what he was called to be, and because of who she was and what she was called to be.

      This is no theological work. It is a mixture of fiction and truth. It is the work of the heart of one who dearly loves St. Joseph and longs to see him loved, admired and honored.

      Our chaplain used to say that God gave us our imagination that we might fill in the cracks in the Gospels. St. Ignatius encouraged his retreatants along such lines, in order to make the Scriptures come alive for the discerning heart.

      The wondrous truths in this story, although put in a fictional but plausible setting, are found in quotations taken directly from the Saint Joseph’s Version of the New American Bible.

      The various customs mentioned have been taken from authentic documentaries of 1st century life in Palestine and of the Jewish customs surrounding betrothal, which at that time was as binding as marriage.

      As for Joseph’s vow, and how it came to be, this is part of the story. Its basis is my belief in his flawless purity. If he was called to raise and train as a human son, Jesus, the Son of God, he must have been found in the eyes of the Almighty to be very God-like, and totally compatible in character with the woman chosen to be Jesus’ virginal mother.

      Joseph had to be strong. He was a carpenter. Also, we know from the Gospels that he was called upon to make arduous journeys with Mary and her Child.

      Despite the white-bearded Josephs of art, Joseph had to be young. According to the Judaic Encyclopedia a young man risked being considered accursed if he were not married by the age of twenty, very much as was a woman who remained childless, a suffering we know Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth, endured.

      God’s ways of thinking are not like those of men, and the little town of Nazareth is such a good example of this.

      Nazareth was an agricultural town of a few dozen families. It was nestled in the southern basin of the hills of lower Galilee. It lay about fifteen miles west of the Sea of Genesareth, a five day’s journey from Jerusalem, with its western outlying district of Ain Kerem, Elizabeth’s home.

      There was nothing pretentious about Nazareth. Its very ordinariness prompted its being tagged by the saying, Can anything good come from Nazareth?

      This is where Joseph and Mary lived.

      This story comes from my deep belief in the personalities of the characters portrayed, and the beauty of holy relationships, whether with friends or spouse or counselors. May you come to know more intimately these persons who allowed themselves to be formed by God’s love, and His plan for their lives. May witnessing love that can supersede human weakness in time of crisis strengthen your spirit and give greater joy to your living.

      Part I

      Chapter I

      He stopped in his tracks and stood as in a trance.

      Come on, Joseph! It was Aaron calling. The others had gone on ahead and now Aaron stood beside him, tugging at his sleeve.

      Come on! What has come over you?

      Joseph smiled and followed his friend, although in truth he would have much preferred to sit down under the tree by the path and dream awhile.

      Who was that girl? Just now he had glimpsed her from the point of the bluff as she rounded the corner of the path in the village — a girl rather newly come to Nazareth. He had seen her before. Indeed, he smiled to himself, had he not grabbed every chance he could to see her?

      She was different from the other girls. True, he would be hard put to say just how, but his heart told him it was so. Every day she went to the well when all the girls were there. She laughed and talked with them, but what was it—a certain quiet seriousness about her manner? She was not aloof, no, not that. She seemed, indeed, to have a ready enough smile, but wasn’t silly as he had noticed the other girls were wont to be, and especially if the boys were near, certainly never coy or flirty.

      But when this girl smiled, Joseph mused, it was as though all heaven had burst upon the scene. Who could ask him to deny she was lovely? But there was something else—that elusive sense of transparency, a simple dignity, and an uncommon graciousness in a maiden so young. Thirteen, maybe fourteen, no more! And maybe that was it. She seemed to be wrapped about with an aura of grace, of which she herself appeared to be totally unconscious.

      She was physically beautiful, all right. But it seemed to be far more a suffusion from within. This touched Joseph very deeply.

      What is it with you, Joseph? Jacob broke into his reverie.

      Yeah, chimed in Ariel, "you’re like

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