The Greatest Journey, part 6

I love to reread this each year, journeying through Advent, so I'm reposting it.

Ending our examination of chapter five of  Go to Joseph, Father Gilsdorf leads us to consider Joseph when he first sees Jesus.

Guido Reni, St. Joseph with the Infant Jesus

In the depth of the night, Mary gives birth. The purest eyes on earth, undimmed by sin, look with maternal ecstasy into the eternal depths of the little eyes of her Divine Son, Who is also the Son of God, eyes now looking outward with infinite love into the world He created in the beginning.

Then Joseph approaches. His chaste fatherly eyes gaze in rapture on the face of the Christ Child. As a sure guide of the journey to Bethlehem, that "House of Bread," he has accomplished his first task. Soon there would be more journeys of pilgrimage and exile: the Presentation of the Infant, the coming of the Magi, the flight into Egypt, and years later, the finding of his Boy in the Temple. How can we not give to this Christmas procession the title of "The Greatest Journey?" And Joseph led the way.

What a powerful lesson to youth of all times. If we hold the more common modern view of the age of the Holy Couple, does it not become irresistibly appealing to the good young people living among us? Will they not perhaps be astonished and thrilled to discover how God entrusted the salvation of the world into the care of a very young man and woman? Will they not open their hearts to the call and challenge of God to undertake great missions that He has in store for them in the Church?

That is the end of chapter five but hopefully you can see why I found this little book so good. Tom and I are reading it together, a bit at a time, after dinner each evening.