Sunday Within The Octave Of The Assumption

St. Joachim

Preparation. - “We praise a man who is glorious in his generation, and received from God the blessing of all nations.” Thus speaks the Church in the office of St. Joachim. Let us consider, first, his eminent holiness, and secondly, the glory and power he enjoys in heaven. And then we shall resolve daily to invoke him, and ask of him a tender love Jesus and Mary, to whom we owe all the graces of salvation. “The Lord gave him the blessing of all nations.”

I. St. Joachim’s Eminent Holiness

How great an honor for St. Joachim to be the father of Mary, the holiest and most glorious of creatures, and the grandfather of the immortal King, of Him who is the glory and hope of humanity, the Ruler of princes and nations, the Incarnate God, at whose name every knee should bow in heaven, on earth and in hell. But of what profit would that signal honor have been to him, had he not joined thereto holiness? Though a descendant of David and so nearly related to Jesus and father of Mary, would he have drawn the attention of God to himself without practicing virtue? No; for sanctification is above all dignities; or rather, before God every dignity is nothing, if it is not clothed and adorned with divine grace. Wherefore St. Joachim’s perfection was such as to make him worthy of being the father of the Queen of saints.

Although he was in easy circumstances, he was wholly detached from earthly wealth. He divided his goods into three parts; one was for the Temple, the second for the poor, and the third for the support of his household. His life was consecrated to prayer and penance; and thanks to his prayers and mortifications and those of St. Ann, his wife, the Lord anticipated the time when the beneficent Dawn appeared, that is Mary, in order to announce the rising of the Sun of Justice. Hence St. Joachim thus contributed to our Redemption.

This great saint ardently desires to help us, when we invoke him. And what more useful favor can we ask him, than to understand, as he did, the value of virtue? He esteemed it above all earthly goods, and made it the constant object of his thoughts, desires, labor and had nowhere found any thing comparable to that precious treasure. Whilst others sought only to increase their earthly fortune, he attached himself solely to the imperishable riches of holiness.

Let us examine if this is also our pre-occupation. Whence have we so many useless things in our mind, so much eagerness in our heart for worldly news, so many cares concerning our honor, our comforts, our pleasures, and the success of our efforts? Do we not often place earth before heaven, the human before the divine, our own tastes before God’s holy will?

O Lord, how many precious moments I lose in trifles instead of devoting them, as St. Joachim did, to meditation on the truths of salvation. Grant that, like him, I may be detached from all created goods, and enable me to understand in what consists the one thing necessary here below, a holy life which will secure for us a blissful eternity.

II. St. Joachim’s Glory And Power

The glory and power enjoyed in heaven by the blessed father of the Queen of virgins, are in proportion to his great holiness, and as his holiness is proportionate to the great dignity God gave him by making him the father of Mary and the grand-parent of Jesus, may we not say that his throne in the heavenly Jerusalem is one of the most glorious, and that his power is among the greatest? Moreover, his influence with Mary, his daughter, is boundless, for she would surely not refuse any thing to her father. And we know that Mary’s power over the Heart of her Son has no limits. She one day appeared to St. Gertrude, accompanied by St. Joachim resplendent with a bright light and seated on a royal throne. Mary presented to him one after the other the petitions of the nuns imploring her assistance. This vision shows us the deference of the Queen of saints to her father, and his great power over the heart of his beloved Daughter. His power in heaven is derived both from his own merit, and from the affection Jesus and Mary bear him. It follows from this that our confidence in St. Joachim cannot be disappointed, especially in matters pertaining to salvation.

To sanctify ourselves it behooves us not only to esteem, but also to practice the Christian virtues. And how many supernatural helps we need for this! “We are required,” says St. Alphonsus, “to know and despise ourselves, and to be conformed in all things to the divine will.” How can we fulfill these conditions without very abundant graces? These we can obtain by having recourse to St. Joachim. He will obtain for us, if we ask him, that deep humility, which was one of the chief marks of his sanctity, and which secured for him the privilege of becoming the father of the humblest of creatures. He will enable us to practice self-denial, which will help us to regulate our interior in accordance with the maxims of faith, by repressing our evil inclinations and all that in us which is opposed to the all-perfect and all-amiable will of our God.

O Lord Jesus, I am so far from possessing the virtue of Thy faithful servants, who measured their progress by their love of sacrifice and their victories over their evil propensities. Through St. Joachim’s intercession, grant that I may have the most humble opinion of myself, and that I may have the strength to give up my too human, too natural inclinations, and to obey grace, so that I may thus raise in my soul the edifice of Thy love over the ruins of my self-love.