Look to saints this Lent to build obedience, patience

What a holy week we’ve had! Starting out with St. Patrick’s feast day and moving into St. Joseph’s feast day, there has been an entire week of celebration. From parades in honor to St. Patrick and altars erected in honor of the carpenter, foster-father of Jesus, we have truly experienced a joyous occasion in the early weeks of the Lenten season.

St. Patrick’s Day is a celebration that is enjoyed by multitudes of people, Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Rather than solely a religious feast day, it has become a cultural holiday in celebration of the famed Irish patron saint. Marked by the public celebration of parades and festivals, as well as wearing green, and the memory of the shamrock, we celebrate the feast day of a great saint.

The shamrock: The Trinity
While the celebration of this feast day is marked nationwide, I wonder just how many people stop to think about the reason for the celebration: the memory of the saint who Christianized the Irish, explaining the doctrine of the Trinity with the shamrock, and evangelizing the Christian message.

Similarly, this past week, we celebrated the feast day of St. Joseph. Of this feast day, in particular, I have fond memories. My great-grandparents used to erect a very large St. Joseph’s altar on their patio. My great-grandfather worked intensely on the construction and erection of the altar, while my great-grandmother, my great-aunt, my grandmother, and eventually my mother would bake the Sicilian cookies and sweet breads to go on the altar.

All female generations on my mother’s side would share stories of the never-changing process: my great-grandmother always in charge, always starting early and continuing until the night before the altar’s public appearance.

In elementary school, I remember the class field trips to my great-grandparents’ altar, learning about its cultural and religious history, and partaking in the delicious foods that my great-grandmother always put into little bags for us. It is a cherished memory, and something I always recall at each St. Joseph altar I’ve visited, although none can compare to my great-grandparents’!

God answers in his time
This year, in particular, the feast of St. Joseph held special significance to me and my family. We are often told about the power of prayer, and of the patience that we must have as we await the answer of those prayers. Sometimes it may not be the answer that we wished for, but it always an answer that is, ultimately, for the best.

God knows our plans better than we do ourselves, and he would never leave us astray. It’s difficult, sometimes, to remember the importance and power of prayer. I know that I often struggle with it, getting frustrated by what I think is the lack of an answer. But then there are times that I think I am given a reminder of its importance by the immediacy of, perhaps not an answer, but the sign of an answer coming in the future. That has been my lesson for the week, a lesson that I’ve learned through the intercession of St. Joseph.

As we recall these joyful celebrations of the lives of two saints whose obedience to God’s will lead them to what they are remembered for today, we must try to incorporate that obedience and patience into our own lives.

This Lent, as we self-reflect, maybe we can ask ourselves if we have truly been obedient to God, or have we selfishly followed our own desires? With the lives of St. Patrick and St. Joseph as our example, we can learn to live and love obediently, and ask for their intercession as we attempt to become more like them this Lenten season.

Heather Bozant Witcher can be reached at hbozantwitcher@clarionherald.org.