Exchange Of Vows
If the designs of Almighty God in His creation are followed with the attention they deserve, we see that everything that came into existence by his omnipotent power was created by Him in such a state of perfection according to its own level, that it is able to develop to fulfilment the purpose for which it was created. Earthquakes, falling masonry, plants growing from seed to their allotted height, rain and droughts, day and night, the seasons of the year, everything without exception is subject to rules in which the designs of the creating Godhead has enshrined it. And just as Adam in the Garden of Eden could not find a helpmate amongst all the animals in the world, so has God amongst all His creation reserved only one creature exclusively for Himself, the one created in His own image and likeness: Man. “Male and female He created them” [Gen. 1:27]. This ought to be the stone end of any rabid feminism. The female of the human species, as every normal woman knows, has been created in God’s image and likeness. And each human being has been called into existence for only one purpose: to possess for all eternity the God who loved him and her enough to create them for Himself. For, according to the great St. Thomas Aquinas, it is only the total possession of God that will finally satisfy the yearning for Good (Bonum) in the human heart.
“And so a human being will have its perfection in the union with God
as with its Object, in which alone the human beatitude consists”.
( Ia-IIae | 3 | 8 | c ).
Which union according to the teachings of this great Doctor of the Church incorporates both the vision and knowledge of God as well as the love of God. And it is in this union with God that at last the human heart finds it final rest as in its possession, its possession of God.
Now it is obvious that, if this is the final supernatural end in Heaven of all creatures endowed by their Creator with reason and free will, that is all mankind and all Angels, we do not have to be a St. Thomas Aquinas to understand that this union with and this possession of God must also be the ultimate happiness here on earth. This is what the Holy Catholic Church means when She stresses the overriding importance of being “in the state of Sanctifying Grace” in this life here on earth, as this is synonymous with Her doctrine of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in a soul. And put in a different Light, what must be said of the thoughtless practice of forcing Catholics nowadays to listen in so many churches to creatures: loud singing, piped music, tape recorders, soloists, announcements, jokes, laughter, clapping, talking and all the other din, when for a mere 15 - 20 minutes they live the foretaste of the intimacy of this divine embrace with their Creator after reception of Holy Communion? For it is this very word, Holy Communion, which alone contains the very essence of this eternal possession of the Blessed Trinity of which St. Thomas speaks: union. It is certainly not found in its universal replacement, ‘community’, which word is as hollow and sterile and amorphous as the thing it refers to. No one knows what “the community” thinks. No one knows what it wants; what it believes, what it is afraid of, or what binds it together, except maybe briefly in times of disaster. ‘The community’ is as non-descript an entity as the bond between travellers in a train, each with his own thoughts or with her own destination. Or else it is just as distant as fish are in a bowl: unstructured. But the very vagueness of the word ‘community’ came as a flash of lightning to the top Modernists universally in control of local churches to bury that hated word ‘Communion of Saints’, the very essence of the unique Catholic Church instituted by Christ. For we (and they!) know very well what ‘the Communion of Saints’ thinks. We know what binds it together. We know securely what it wants. We know exactly what it believes. We know how it is structured. We know its common destination. And we know that it is not cemented together here on earth in the House of God by the very things we mentioned above: rudeness and din in the presence of God during Mass and after Holy Communion, the time on earth of the very “possession of God” ...
For, although in His divine Wisdom, the Creator of all has made everyone of His rational creatures unique, the final end of each of them is the same: the possession of God. The narrow road to this union is the same, and the means, true Faith, Hope and Love, prayer and penance, the Cross of our Saviour and the Sacraments of the Church, by which we get to this possession of God, are the same for every member of the Communion of Saints. It is this wonder of the uniqueness of each person on earth within the same common bond in the Supernatural Order, which sets this so highly enriched ‘Communion’ apart from the non-descript and fragmented ‘community’. For, whatever is its meaning, this ‘community’ is a thing that belongs solely to this earth, whereas ‘communion of Saints’ lives and thrives on this earth for the good of all ‘communities’, but transcends this world into the next.
The fact of the absence of any ‘cloning’ or duplication in the uniqueness that exists within the Communion of Saints is the reason that this union with God is not lived with the same intensity by all who share it. It is clearly the belief of the Holy Catholic Church that the union with God enjoyed by the Blessed Virgin Mary surpasses in intensity the union with God of all other of God’s rational creatures combined. And here we touch on a deep mystery in God: His altogether freedom of selection, by which one human being or Angel has been allotted a more important vocation, and consequently a greater share in divine graces, than another. And if we apply this divine freedom of the Deity to the subject of this book, St. Joseph, then we can see that it was the divine intention to entrust to this uniquely blessed man not only the guardianship of the sanctity and virginity of Her who was destined to be called to be the Mother of God, but also the protection of the Fruit of that divine Maternity, the Word of God Himself, during the formative years in His incarnate existence here on earth. This may give us some inkling of the extraordinary graces God had in store for the attainment of the exceptional holiness to which the spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the fosterfather of his only begotten Son was going to be called. Although these divine designs lay still hidden in the future, the on-going preparation for them was very much in the present at any stage of this young life. Needless to say, the first requirement - as we have already drawn attention to - was the so necessary habit of prayer and meditation, especially the God-pleasing prayer for the gift of Wisdom, and for the strict discipline of mind and heart as the indispensable condition for the attainment of such a priceless gift. For, as we may call once again on the great St. Thomas Aquinas to teach us with his characteristic authority and finality: the attainment of both the gift and the virtue of Wisdom is impossible if even one virtue, be it theological, cardinal or moral, is missing. If the Lord God calls a Saint to perfection in this life with graces that will override all human weakness, He is not going to be satisfied with half measures or glaring deficiencies.
“... and in purity I have found Her.” [Si. 51:27]
just as in impurity king Solomon lost Her ... [Si. 47:21-22].
What enkindled within the heart of the future spouse of the all-holy Virgin such a desire for purity that, according to one tradition, he consecrated himself totally to God by a vow of perpetual virginity at the age of twelve in anticipation of one of the divine beatitudes:
“Blessed are the pure of heart, they shall see God”. [Mt. 5:8].
If ever a man was called “to see God” longer than any other man on earth, it was the fosterfather of His only-begotten Son, the Word made flesh. What enkindled him? Reading up on his hero, Joseph the son of Israel. For this is what, centuries later, Joseph of Nazareth was able to read and ponder about:
Now Joseph was taken down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the Ishmalites who had brought him down there. The Lord God was with Joseph, and he became a successful man; and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian. And when his master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord caused all that he did to prosper in his hands, he was pleased with Joseph and he made him his personal attendant. And from the time he put him in charge of his household and all his possessions, the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake; the Lord extended His blessing over all his possessions, both household and estate. So he left Joseph to handle all his possessions; and with him at hand concerned himself with nothing but the food he ate.
Now Joseph was handsome and good-looking. And after a time his master‘s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph, and said, “Lie with me.” But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Look, having me, my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has handed over all his possessions to me; he is no more master in his house than I am; nor has he kept back anything from me except yourself, because you are his wife; how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” And although she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie with her or to be with her. But one day, when he went into the house to do his work and none of the servants of the house were there, the woman caught hold of him by his tunic, saying, “Lie with me.” But he left the tunic in her hand, and fled and got out of the house. And when she saw that he had left his tunic in her hand, and had fled out of the house, she called the servants of her household and said to them, “See, he has brought among us a Hebrew to insult us; he came in to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice; and when he heard that I raised my voice he left his tunic with me and ran out of the house.”She then laid his tunic by her side until his master came home, and she told him the same story, saying, “The Hebrew servant, whom you have brought among us, came in to me to insult me; but as soon as I raised my voice and cried out, he left his tunic with me, and ran out of the house.”
When his master heard the words which his wife spoke to him, “This is the way your servant treated me,” his anger was kindled. And Joseph’s master had him arrested and put in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined, and there in prison he stayed.
But the Lord God remained with Joseph and showed him steadfast love, and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph’s care all the prisoners who were in the prison, making him responsible for everything done there. The keeper of the prison paid no heed to anything that was in Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with him; and the Lord God made everything he undertook successful.
Reading and re-reading these inspired words under the unction of the Holy Spirit in the Book of Genesis, chapter. 39, how could the man God had destined to be placed in charge over His most precious possessions on earth, fail to be greatly impressed by this example of wisdom, purity and trust in God? These natural and supernatural qualities deal with the very essence which this chosen instrument would need to possess to perfection himself later on. How can anyone contemplate that the servant of God to be in charge of the protection of two immaculately conceived and sinless Virgins, would not be an avowed virgin himself? If at the age of 12 a Jewish boy could make decisions affecting his future, we may begin to understand why the Holy Spirit would inspire the youthful Joseph to dedicate himself so completely to God by a vow of chastity in such a tender age. And thus the boy Joseph grew into manhood by hard work, prayerful and chaste, and by a strict code of discipline in his pursuit of Wisdom.
Meanwhile, in faraway Jerusalem, a temple maiden, dedicated by Her parents at the age of three to the service of God, had reached the age of fourteen years, at which the moment of the departure from the House of God had arrived. Unbeknown to the high priest, this Virgin too had consecrated Herself to God by a Vow of Perpetual Virginity, the expression of a lifelong ambition. In the full knowledge that the inspiration for this Vow had come from God and that the Almighty would take care of its fulfilment, the Virgin Mary consented to the request of the highpriest that She should return to the world, and to the service of God in the marital state, no matter how painful for Her this new development in Her life had become.
And so it came to pass that, when on the feast of the subsequent Passover Jews from all over the country came to Jerusalem, the highpriest was inspired by God to view an inner group of young men to select the most suitable candidate from them to whom this exceptional child could be given in holy matrimony. Needless to say, this high honour fell on Joseph, the carpenter from Nazareth. What thoughts must have gone through the minds of these two, the richest flowers ever to grow in God’s exclusive garden. But when the moment had arrived to seal before the highpriest their lifelong fidelity in holy matrimony by the customary exchange of vows, all these two spouses really did in the sight of God and in the sight of each other was to found their lifelong union on the exchange of their Vows of Perpetual Virginity ...