CHARLOTTE — Everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, but more than ever this year as the St. Patrick’s Day Parade returned to Charlotte.
Saturday’s festivities were the first held since the pandemic, and thousands of people came out to celebrate everything Irish.
Students from St. Patrick, St. Ann and Our Lady of the Assumption schools, plus members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Knights of Columbus, Irish dancers, pipe and drum bands, alumni from Belmont Abbey College and other Catholic entities took part.
— Photos by Mike FitzGerald, Liz Chandler and Lucy Bustos
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‘St. Joseph, give us your silence’ this Lent
As we journey through Lent, accompanying Our Lord in the desert by fasting and praying in union with Him, it is good to have a saintly companion as our guide.
St. Joseph, whom St. Teresa of Avila called “the patron of people who seek to grow in prayer,” is an ideal saint to accompany us as we seek to grow in holiness.
Carmelite Father Michael-Joseph Paris studied in Avila, Spain for a year. He offered a reflection on St. Joseph and how St. Teresa of Avila teaches us to take St. Joseph as a father and a companion who will help us on the intense journey of the spiritual life.
He reminds us that there are no recorded words of St. Joseph in the gospels. This protector of the Holy Family and protector of the Universal Church is seen as the example of a strong, quiet presence, with a silent receptivity to the presence of God in Jesus.
“He too had a life of deep silent prayer. Always united to the presence of Jesus, nourishing and caring for Him in all of His needs, just like the body, the Church,” Father Paris said. “Because of this, St. Joseph is our model and our guide who makes sure we always stay on the right path in our prayer.”
St. Teresa says in her autobiography that, “Especially persons of prayer should always be attached to St. Joseph. Those who cannot find a master to teach them prayer should take this glorious saint for their master, and they will not go astray.”
For us too, who seek to grow in our spiritual life, we can entrust ourselves to St. Joseph as the best guide on our own unique path to divine union, Father Paris added.
This Lent we can take as our motto, “San Jose dame tu silencio,” which means “St. Joseph give me your silence.”
“We can ask for his intercession for the grace of an inner silence which listens for the will of God, and which helps us serve quietly in love without trying to be noticed or to seek our own glory,” Father Paris said. “This grace of silence will keep us united to Jesus through all the struggles of this life and will gradually transform us into Christ’s very image.”
As we move through these 40 days of Lent, let us walk in silence with St. Joseph, contemplating Christ’s love for us and ultimately His death and resurrection, which will lead us to the joys of Easter.
— SueAnn Howell
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Father Michael-Joseph of St. Therese is a Carmelite Friar of the Washington Province who resides at Holy Hill at the Basilica and National Shrine of Mary Help of Christians in Hubertus, Wis. His full reflection is available on YouTube at www.discalcedcarmel.org/blog/from-avila-spain-st-joseph-give-me-your-silence.