St Joseph

It’s a cold, chilly day today, and a moment ago I looked out the window and saw… snow! ❄️. It’s a little bit of a shock, but it’s not totally unexpected as we’re still in March.  The snow can continue until mid-May when it wants to, but when there’s a long break the surprise is bigger.  Jerry parked himself on me every chance he got today.  I was on the phone and he settled himself in, stretched out on his back, put up his front paw and batted me in the face… when he thought I’d talked enough, he changed position, sat staring at me for a while then tried knocking the phone out of my hand.  He left me to go lie on Don, and is now glaring at me from the sofa.  Don had a doctor’s appointment today (🙌) and now has a requisition for a chest X-Ray which he’ll do in a few days.  The respirologist needs to see how his lungs are doing, so fingers crossed!  He’s suffering sports withdrawal, as spring training is dragging on and not accomplishing anything, and the other games are spread out.  

I slept quite well last night, and had a decent appetite both yesterday and today.  I had a brief bout of “digestive issues” yesterday, which resolved itself without needing any medication although it did exhaust me and I slept for several hours in the afternoon and most of the night.  My back has been twinging which is probably due to the fact that I’ve woken up a few days having managed to twist myself into some interesting shapes.  I’m going to work on dinner soon, and I am really not sure what I’d like to have.  Thankfully there’s frozen meals that will simplify my life a lot.

Well, today is the Feast of St Joseph, (and anecdotally the day that the swallows return to Capistrano) and a day when the Lenten fast is officially suspended for all the faithful.  He’s a saint who is mentioned only a few times in the New Testament, in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, is referred to in John, and not called by name in any of the other books.  What we know about him, therefore, is very limited, with the main focus being his role as foster father of Jesus.  We’re told that he became aware of Mary’s pregnancy but didn’t want to publicly shame her, which is remarkably considerate for a man of that period — or perhaps not?  Perhaps there were more men who treated women as people as opposed to property, but we don’t hear much about them.  In any case, he seems to have treated the child Jesus as his own, training him as a carpenter, protecting him by fleeing to Egypt, searching for him when he got lost at the Temple, so as a model for fatherhood he definitely ranks high.  He’s also the patron of workers, protector of the poor, comforter of the sick, patron of the dying and (my favourite) Terror of Demons.  Our nuns belonged to the order of St Joseph, and today was always a holiday when we were in school, so I still consider this a special day.  He’s clearly a very busy saint, with so many roles!  

Jerry is letting me know that he feels neglected and I am started to get hungry, so I’m going to switch to being prosaic and find a meal for myself (and pet the pooch a bit.)  Good night!