I met Sister Rose in a downtown Cincinnati restaurant more than 20 years ago. In time, I would come to edit her column. And our friendship—as well as a shared love of film—took root. As those close to me know, I can be exhausting in my enthusiasm for pop culture, but in Sister Rose I found an inexhaustible mentor and sounding board. 

Like all the greats, Sister Rose shows more than she tells. Film is, after all, a visceral experience, one that can challenge or enrich our faith lives. In Sister Rose, our readers have a champion of the kind of storytelling that moves humanity forward. While the media landscape can be a veritable highway of trash, Sister Rose was our exit ramp to media that informs and inspires. She’s won awards, written books, traveled the world, and rubbed elbows with Hollywood royalty. But that is secondary to what brings her real joy: finding God in the media we consume every day. 

What words could possibly commemorate the two decades of knowledge and grace she’s given to this magazine and my life? I can think of only two: Thank you.

A walk along the Tijuana-San Diego border opens this pilgrim’s eyes to the plight of refugees. 

The sun above the San Diego-Tijuana border is aggressive even for a mild January morning. The sunlight in this part of the country weighs on my shoulders differently somehow, like a jacket I can’t take off. But even on this pristine day, as a visitor in the Barrio Logan neighborhood of San Diego, I am immediately confronted by it: the fence. 

It’s an imposing structure—by design. The rust-colored fence is lined with mesh and coiled barbed wire that stretches some 700 miles along the 2,000-mile border between our two countries. From this pilgrim’s perspective, I’m dwarfed by it. It’s so tall it blocks the sky. 

I am one of many here. This border experience, hosted by the University of San Diego’s Franciscan School of Theology, offers a boots-on-the-ground view of the perils of immigration. As our group of roughly a hundred meanders along the border, it’s impossible not to feel like you’re being watched, even studied. Border patrol is a constant presence. One officer in particular cuts an intimidating figure. Chewing gum feverishly, he’s wearing mirrored sunglasses and is heavily armed. 

I quickly look away: at my feet, at the fence that is inescapable, at the friars who shepherd our group. Their brown habits are a measure of reassurance. My mind somehow finds the space to wander. I think about three stories separated by centuries, language, culture, and circumstance and which nevertheless provide a framework for me during this immersion experience. 

Holy Family: Refugees on the Run

“Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him” (Mt 2:13). 

According to the UN Refugee Agency, more than 117 million people will be displaced from their home countries this year alone. The war in Ukraine has only worsened the crisis. Citizens without a state to call home, many will traverse dangerous waters or deserts to the United States and beyond for a better life. As they escape torture or other human rights violations, it’s hard for me not to compare asylum seekers with the Holy Family’s escape into Egypt. The parallels are just too real to ignore. 

As I walk this route, I spot a pregnant Hispanic woman pushing a toddler in a stroller. She stops to answer a phone call and begins to rub her lower back. I think about Mary and her flight in the desert—carrying a newborn in her arms and in distress. How did she manage? How did Joseph calm her fears? I can’t fathom the difficulties of their journey, the biting chill of the desert night, how each mile brought uncertainty. 

It takes grit to cross a border for a better life, irrespective of laws. This is a reality to which I simply cannot relate. But as I survey the landscape around me, dotted with flecks of green and framed by canyons, I think of what it might look like in the dead of night: negotiating the jagged terrain with no protection from the elements. 

At a weekly general audience in December 2021, Pope Francis likened the plight of asylum seekers to the struggle of the Holy Family. “Herod is a symbol of many tyrants of yesterday and today. For these tyrants, people don’t matter, power matters,” he said before giving us a simple call to action. “Protect all those who flee because of war, hatred, and hunger.”  

The best that I can do is offer up a prayer for those who need it. 

A Saint Befriends a Sultan

“Before he reached the Sultan, he was captured by soldiers, insulted, and beaten. Although he was ill-treated by many with a hostile spirit and a harsh attitude, he was received very graciously by the Sultan.”—Thomas of Celano, The Life of Saint Francis 

When Francis of Assisi was asked to rebuild a Church in ruins, he took it seriously. In 1219—only seven years before he died—he and Brother Illuminato traveled to Damietta, Egypt, to preach the Gospel or die trying. I admire that degree of daring. Whatever bravery he was infused with is foreign to me. 

As Celano tells it, when Francis reached Malik al-Kamil, the sultan tried to “turn his mind to worldly riches.” Francis, ever wedded to poverty, declined. The sultan soon recognized his visitor as a holy man. Francis and his companion spent nearly two weeks in Egypt and navigated the Crusades with one goal: to build bridges. Peace, the brothers knew, cannot be walled in. 

I notice as we hit the midway point of this journey that, though our group doesn’t set foot on Mexican soil, there is a breeze carrying traces of eucalyptus and rosemary over my shoulders traveling southward. I can only pause to appreciate this. It’s a moment of quiet grace that no fence or border can keep out. 

I think again of Francis of Assisi. How is it that a 13th-century mystic can speak to a crisis that we face in our own time? And why do we seem more divided? When did we begin to favor suspicion over empathy? 

Before he left, the sultan gave his new friend an ivory horn as a gift of goodwill. In the Basilica of St. Francis, it’s housed there still. 

Idalia and Iker: Mother and Child 

“This migrant mother and her child couldn’t wait for their asylum court date anymore. They drowned trying to enter the United States.”—Tweet from the Texas Tribune 

A report by the United Nations showed that there are some 157,000 asylum seekers in Mexico. Idalia Yamileth Herrera Hernandez and her 21-month-old son, Iker Gael Cordova Herrera, were among them. When they were deported from the United States in 2019 because of the Department of Homeland Security’s Remain in Mexico program, which requires asylum seekers to stay in Mexico until their immigration court date, Idalia spent weeks toggling between sleeping on the streets and in halfway houses in Matamoros with her son. 

Looking to join her husband, Elmer, in North Carolina, a desperate Idalia could no longer wait. She and Iker crossed the Rio Grande into Texas and drowned in their attempt. According to Homeland Security, 750 migrants died in the fiscal year 2022 from heat stroke, dehydration, hypothermia, or drowning.

That story has stayed with me since I learned of it, and I keep thinking about Idalia and her son on this walk. Every step I take is within eyeshot of that border fence. Wherever you go, there it is. It stretches, in fact, into the Pacific Ocean. How many people have drowned while attempting to swim around it? If I were desperate for a life better than what I’ve known, could I do the same? 

I cannot shake the image of search and rescue pulling Idalia’s and Iker’s bodies from the water. After their deaths, Elmer reported to Univision 34 his wife’s final text message, which is as prescient as it is heartbreaking: “Imagine,” she wrote, “I’m going to cross the river and I don’t know how [it is] going to be. What if I drown?” 

One Nation

As our group boards the bus for our drive back, my mind regains some focus. I strike up a conversation with Celia, a Peruvian-born American woman in her 80s sitting next to me. She’s curious and chatty. We discover we both like the work of C.S. Lewis. I mention a quote by Lewis in reference to our border experience but can’t remember it exactly. I look it up on my phone. 

“The Church is not a human society of people united by their natural affinities, but the body of Christ, in which all members, however different, must share the common life, complementing and helping one another precisely by their differences,” Lewis wrote. 

It’s interesting how the words of an Anglican who wrote about wardrobes and witches perfectly summarize this experience for us. Are we not one nation, really—citizens of one battered and beautiful world? 

Celia and I join hands briefly, two people from wildly different backgrounds. Somehow it feels like progress—a hopeful moment between new friends.

Sidebar: ‘Let Us Build a Future’ 

Pope Francis has shown, throughout his papacy, to be a vocal advocate for asylum seekers. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to parents of Italian descent, he has an unmistakable empathy for the most imperiled of the world’s citizens. In his message for the 108th World Day of Migrants and Refugees in September 2022, he was, as he’s always been, clear and to the point. 

“No one must be excluded. God’s plan is essentially inclusive and gives priority to those living on the existential peripheries. Among them are many migrants and refugees, displaced persons, and victims of trafficking,” he wrote. “The kingdom of God is to be built with them, for without them it would not be the kingdom that God wants.” 

This is not idle talk. In 2019, he welcomed 33 refugees from camps in Lesbos, Greece, to Vatican City. Today, those families have found safety and a new start. Following the example of Jesus, a refugee and itinerate preacher, Pope Francis has encouraged us all to embrace those along the periphery. 

“If we want to cooperate with our heavenly Father in building the future, let us do so together with our brothers and sisters who are migrants and refugees,” the pope said. “Let us build the future today! For the future begins today, and it begins with each of us.” 

Resources

• Catholic Social Teaching on Immigration, USCCB: usccb.org/committees/migration/immigration  
• Amnesty and Human Rights, Amnesty International: AmnestyUSA.org/campaigns/refugee-and-migrant-rights 
• Immigration and Migration, Pew Research Center: PewResearch.org/topic/immigration-migration 
• The UN Refugee Agency: unhcr.org/en-us 
• Aguilas del Desierto | Eagles of the Desert: aguilasdeldesierto.org/

An eloquent preacher during his life, St. Anthony has become one of the Church’s most popular saints. 

A favorite in much of the Catholic world, St. Anthony of Padua has more cities and places named after him than any other saint—68. This includes 44 in Latin America, 15 in the United States, four in Canada, four in the Philippines, and one in Spain. Four capes, three bays, two reefs, and two peaks also take his name. 

Even more numerous have been, until recently, the statues of St. Anthony in churches, where he is depicted holding the Christ Child, the book of Scriptures, and a lily or a flaming torch. 

A Saint with Worldwide Appeal

Anthony must have been a favorite of missionaries who took this likable saint to the Western Hemisphere and to many other lands around the world. But over the years it seems to have been laypeople who have adopted St. Anthony of Padua as a kind of all-purpose saint—finder of lost articles, helper in troubles, healer of bodies and spirits. Hundreds of thousands have prayed the quaint old responsory: “If miracles thou fain would see, Lo, error, death, calamity . . .” 

We might be tempted to ask, as a friar once asked St. Francis of Assisi: “Why after you? Why after you?” The answer seems to be both the immense popularity of St. Anthony in his lifetime and the flood of wonders that followed his death. 

St. Anthony’s Early Life

Anthony was born in 1195 (13 years after St. Francis) in Lisbon, Portugal, at the mouth of the Tagus River, from which explorers would later sail across the Atlantic. His parents, Martim and Maria de Bulhões, belonged to one of the prominent families of the city and were among those who had been loyal in service to the king. The infant was baptized in the nearby cathedral at the foot of Castelo de São Jorge, which still dominates the city. His parents named him Fernando. 

Fernando Martins de Bulhões attended the cathedral school and, at the surprisingly young age of 15, entered the religious order of St. Augustine. “Whoever enters a monastery,” he later wrote, “goes, so to speak, to his grave.” For Fernando, however, the monastery was far from peaceful, because his old friends came to visit so frequently. Their vehement political discussions hardly provided an atmosphere for prayer and study. 

After two years of this, the young man asked to move and was sent to Coimbra, 100 miles north. This was the beginning of nine years of intense study, including learning the Augustinian theology that he would later combine with the Franciscan vision. Fernando probably was ordained a priest during this time. 

St. Anthony Joins the Franciscans

The life of this young priest took a crucial turn when the bodies of the first five Franciscan martyrs were returned from Morocco. These holy men had preached in the mosque in Seville, almost being martyred at the outset, but the sultan allowed them to pass on to Morocco, where, after continuing to preach Christ despite repeated warnings, they were tortured and beheaded. Now, in the presence of the queen and a huge crowd, their remains were carried in solemn procession to Fernando’s monastery. 

Overjoyed and inspired by the martyrs’ heroic deaths, Fernando came to a momentous decision. He went to the little friary the queen had given the Franciscans in Coimbra and said, “Brother, I would gladly put on the habit of your order if you would promise to send me as soon as possible to the land of the Saracens, that I may gain the crown of the holy martyrs.” 

After some challenges from the prior of the Augustinians, he was allowed to leave that priory and receive the Franciscan habit, taking the name Anthony, after the patron of their local church and friary, St. Anthony of the Olives. He was allowed to take vows immediately, as the order did not yet require a novitiate. 

True to their promise, the friars allowed Anthony to go to Morocco, to be a witness for Christ and possibly a martyr as well. But, as often happens, the gift he wanted to give was not the gift that was to be asked of him. Anthony became seriously ill, and, after several months, he realized he had to go home. 

Detour in Italy

He never did arrive home. His ship ran into storms and high winds and was blown east across the Mediterranean. Months later, he arrived on the east coast of Sicily. The friars at nearby Messina, though they didn’t know him, welcomed him and began nursing him back to health. Still ailing, he wanted to attend the great chapter of the Pentecost Mats (so called because the 3,000 friars could not be housed and slept on mats). Francis was there, also sick; however, history does not reveal any meeting between Francis and Anthony.  

Since Anthony was from “out of town,” he received no assignment at the meeting, so he asked to go with a provincial superior from northern Italy. “Instruct me in the Franciscan life,” he asked, not mentioning his prior theological training. Now, like Francis, he had his first choice—a life of seclusion and contemplation in a little hermitage near Monte Paolo. 

Perhaps we would never have heard of Anthony if he hadn’t gone to an ordination of Dominicans and Franciscans in 1222. As they gathered for a meal afterward, the provincial suggested that one of the friars give a short sermon. Quite typically, everybody respectfully declined. So Anthony was asked to give “just something simple,” since he presumably had no education. 

Anthony also demurred but finally began to speak in a simple, artless way. Suddenly, the fire within him became evident. His knowledge was unmistakable, but his holiness was what really impressed everyone there. 

St. Anthony Turns to Preaching

Now he was exposed. His quiet life of prayer and penance at the hermitage was exchanged for that of a public preacher. Francis heard of Anthony’s previously hidden gifts, and Anthony was assigned to preach in northern Italy. It was not like preaching around Assisi, where the faith was strong: In the north, he ran into heretics, well organized and ardent. 

The problem with many preachers in Anthony’s day was that their lifestyles contrasted sharply with that of the poor people to whom they preached. In our experience, it could be compared to an evangelist arriving at a slum in a Mercedes, delivering a homily from his car, and then speeding off to a vacation resort. 

The heresy of that time thus had its grain of truth. The so-called “pure” (Cathari) began by wanting to go back to Gospel poverty. Scandalized by the wealth of the Church, they practiced strict poverty and engaged in manual labor. But they also denied the validity of the hierarchy and the sacraments. They saw themselves as the only “real” Christians. 

Anthony saw that words were obviously not enough. He had to show the Cathari Gospel poverty. People wanted more than self-disciplined, even penitent, priests. They wanted the unselfish genuineness of Gospel living. And in Anthony they found it. They were moved by who he was more than by what he said. In Rimini, one hotbed of heresy, he was able to call the people together—that alone was a sign of his fame. 

Despite his efforts, not everyone listened. Legend has it that one day, while preaching to deaf ears, Anthony went to the river and preached to the fishes. That, says the traditional tale, got everyone’s attention. 

Anthony traveled tirelessly in both northern Italy and southern France—perhaps 400 trips—choosing to enter the cities where the heretics were strongest. Yet the sermons he left behind rarely show him taking direct issue with the heretics. As the historian Daniel Clasen interprets it, Anthony preferred to present the grandeur of Christianity in positive ways. It was no good to prove people wrong. Anthony wanted to win them to the right, the healthiness of real sorrow and conversion, the wonder of reconciliation with a loving Father. The word fire recurs in descriptions of him. And though he was called the “Hammer of Heretics,” the word warmth describes him more fully. 

Public Preacher, Franciscan Teacher

Anthony’s superior, St. Francis, was cautious about education such as his protégé possessed. He had seen too many theologians taking pride in their sophisticated knowledge. Still, if the friars had to hit the road and preach to all sorts of people, they needed a firm grounding in Scripture and theology. So, when he heard the glowing report of Anthony’s debut at the ordination, Francis wrote in 1224, “It pleases me that you should teach the friars sacred theology, provided that in such studies they do not destroy the spirit of holy prayer and devotedness, as contained in the Rule.” 

Anthony first taught in a friary in Bologna. The theology book of the time was the Bible. In one of Anthony’s extant sermons, there are at least 183 passages from Scripture. While none of his theological conferences and discussions were written down, we do have two volumes of his sermons: Sunday Sermons and Feast Day Sermons. His method included much allegory and symbolical explanation of Scripture. Nature was a fertile field from which Anthony gathered symbols and allegories—as did Jesus—such as the lilies of the field, the nest of birds, the web of the spider, the last cry of the dying swan. But above all, Anthony made references to fire, which is why he is sometimes portrayed with a book (the Bible) in one hand and, with the other, holding a flame out toward the onlooker. 

On the occasion of St. Anthony being declared a doctor of the Church (January 16, 1946), the minister general of the Friars Minor, Valentine Schaaf, wrote:  “Our Holy Doctor was the connecting link which joined the chain of the ancient Augustinian tradition [which Anthony had learned in Coimbra] to the then barely emerging Franciscan school. . . . After Anthony, it was especially the Seraphic Doctor St. Bonaventure and the Venerable John Duns Scotus, the Subtle Doctor, who continued to adhere more rigidly and faithfully to the Augustinian spirit, which is briefly expressed in the following words: ‘The fulfillment and the end of the Law and of all divine Scriptures is love.’ Both unanimously assert that theology is a practical science insofar as it is the end of theology to move and lead man to love God.” 

Anthony continued to preach as he taught the friars and assumed more responsibility within the order. In 1226, he was appointed provincial superior of northern Italy, but he still found time for contemplative prayer in a small hermitage. Around Easter in 1228 (he was only 33 years old), he went to Rome, where he met Pope Gregory IX, who had been a faithful friend of and adviser to St. Francis. Naturally, the famous preacher was invited to speak. He did it humbly, as always. The response was so great that to many people it seemed that the miracle of Pentecost was repeated. 

Padua Enters the Picture

Padua, Italy, is a short distance west of Venice. At the time of Anthony, it was one of the most important cities in the country, with a university for the study of civil and canon law. Religion there was at a low point. There was constant fighting between the tyrant Ezzelino, a ruthless, brutal man who led the Ghibellines, and the Guelph party in nearby Verona. Anthony divided his time between solitude—to write the two volumes of his sermons—and preaching to the people of Padua. Sometimes he left Padua for greater solitude. He went to a place loved by Francis—Mount La Verna, where Francis received the wounds of Jesus. He also found a grotto near the friary where he could pray in silence and solitude. 

In poor health and still serving as provincial superior of northern Italy, he went to the general chapter in Rome and asked to be relieved of his duties. But he was later recalled as part of a special commission to discuss certain matters of the Franciscan Rule with the pope. 

Back in Padua, he preached his last and most famous Lenten sermons. The crowds were so great—sometimes 30,000—that the churches could not hold them, so he went into the piazzas or the open fields. People waited all night to hear him. He needed a bodyguard to protect him from the people armed with scissors who wanted to cut off a piece of his habit as a relic. After his morning Mass and sermon, he would hear confessions. This sometimes lasted all day—as did his fasting. 

Anthony was instrumental in a matter of social justice. Under the law, a Paduan debtor was put in prison if he could not pay. A new law read: “At the request of the venerable Friar (and holy confessor) Anthony of the Order of Friars Minor, it is established and ordained that henceforth no one is to be held in prison for pecuniary debt.” Debtors did have to relinquish their possessions, but they were free.  

In another instance of civic involvement, he failed to move the tyrant Ezzelino to release the leader of those opposing him. Anthony was so disappointed over this that he withdrew from public life. 

Last Days and Canonization

The great energy he had expended during Lent left him exhausted. He went to a little town near Padua, but seeing death coming close, he wanted to return to the city that he loved. “If it seems good to you,” he said to one of the friars, “I should like to return to Padua to the friary of Santa Maria, so as not to be a burden to the friars here.” The journey in a wagon weakened him so much, however, that he had to stop at Arcella. He had to bless Padua from a distance, as Francis had blessed Assisi. 

At Arcella, Anthony received the last sacraments and sang and prayed with the friars there. When one of them asked Anthony what he was staring at so intently, he answered, “I see my Lord!” He died in peace a short time after that. He was only 36 and had been a Franciscan but 10 years. 

The following year, his friend Pope Gregory IX, moved by the many miracles that occurred at Anthony’s tomb, declared him a saint. Many years later, during exhumation of Anthony’s body for transferal, Anthony’s tongue was found to be still lifelike and of a natural color, though the rest of his body had disintegrated. St. Bonaventure, head of all Franciscans in the world, was present at the transfer, and he cried out: “O blessed tongue, you have always praised the Lord and led others to praise him! Now we can clearly see how great indeed have been your merits before God!” 

Anthony was a simple, humble friar who preached the good news lovingly and with fearless courage. The youth whom his fellow friars thought was uneducated became one of the great preachers and theologians of his day. He was a man of great penance and apostolic zeal. But he was primarily a saint of the people.

Before we get into why this gathering is so important and groundbreaking, though, let’s back up a little. Many Catholics may not even know what a synod is. They may not be clear on what such a gathering has to do with the Church and their faith, or how they play a part. 

Laying the Groundwork

First off, a synod is a gathering of the faithful to listen to what the Holy Spirit is calling the Church to be and do. Coming from the Greek word synodos, it generally means “walking together.” Usually, synods are reserved for bishops and Church hierarchy. They can address any number of issues facing the Church. 

This time, the topic is synodality. Synodality is a style, a culture, a way of thinking and being, that reflects the truth that the Church is led by the Holy Spirit, who enables everyone to offer their own contribution to the Church’s life. In announcing the synod, Pope Francis said it this way: “Synodality is not a chapter in an ecclesiology textbook, much less a fad or a slogan to be bandied about in our meetings. Synodality is an expression of the Church’s nature, her form, style, and mission.” 

And, according to Pope Francis, the concept is something that is sorely missing from today’s Church. 

From the beginning, the pope has made it clear that this was a discussion for everyone in the Church. From October 2021 to October 2022, millions of Catholics from around the world were asked to speak up and have their voices heard. Listening sessions and discussions took place in parishes and dioceses. No topic was off the table—women’s ordination, LGBTQ+ issues, divorce and remarriage, and any other that was weighing on the hearts of Catholics. 

Those discussions, according to some dioceses, did not include many of the people the Church needs to reach out to. The fruits of those discussions and listening sessions were then compiled by the various regions and sent to the Vatican in preparation for this October’s gathering. The summary from the North American region noted: “People ask that the Church be a refuge for the wounded and broken, not an institution for the perfect. They want the Church to meet people wherever they are, to walk with them rather than judge them, and to build real relationships through caring and authenticity, not a purpose of superiority.” 

Acknowledging that something this important and expansive would take time, Pope Francis expanded the synod until October 2024 to allow for the discussions to bear fruit. 

An Ongoing Conversation

Already, the synod has borne some fruit—even before this first session. There are more women in positions of influence than ever before. Discussions on tough topics facing the Church are being had. Practices are being questioned and explanations are being asked for. Yet the work is only beginning. The process of this synod is expansive. It can be easy to get caught up in and confused by the process. But one thing is clear. We are all a vital and necessary part of this process, and this is the moment for us to speak up and make our voices heard. 

But there is still work to be done. The synod process thus far has lain bare many things that Catholics feel need to be addressed. And we have found our voices. Now, let’s all journey together, wherever the Holy Spirit may lead us.

Joan of Arc disguised herself as a man to fight the British. Deborah Sampson did it for the same reason in the Revolutionary War. Be it film, literature, theater, television, or politics: Cross-dressing or other forms of gender nonconformity have been embedded in our history since time began. Though director Sébastien Lifshitz’s earlier films have addressed LGBTQ+ themes to great acclaim, in Casa Susanna, he unveils something entirely fresh and powerful here, a thoughtful examination of identity and community. 

Deep in the Catskill town of Jewett, New York, is a nondescript farmhouse dotted with bungalows on its 150 acres. Ensconced by an expanse of trees in every direction, the resort looks like a secret kingdom, and for cross-dressers and the trans community in the ’50s and early ’60s, it was. This was illegal activity at the time, so Casa Susanna offered a kind of safe harbor. 

The documentary primarily focuses on four people: Gregory, whose grandmother Maria was married to Tito (the titular “Susanna” when dressed as a woman); Betsy, the daughter of Donald, an author, cross-dresser, and frequent visitor of the resort; and Katherine and Diana, trans women who reminisce about Casa Susanna’s glory days. Interspersed throughout the film are candid photographs of countless women and men who found sanctuary and fellowship within this private world. The result is a film of quiet power. 

While Casa Susanna has no overt political agenda (a relief, to be sure), it’s impossible not to consider its message with what’s going on in the country today. The LGTBQ+ community feels (rightly or wrongly) on the attack, and one need only consider the anti-drag laws introduced in more than a dozen states whose lawmakers deem drag performers more dangerous than AR-15s. But Lifshitz isn’t interested in bold proclamations on this controversy. His intent is simply to celebrate the inherent dignity of those who fall outside traditional gender labels. And are they not also loved by God? How dare we suggest otherwise? 

For this reviewer, the one who makes the strongest impression is Diana, a transgender woman who conquered hardships to claim the life she wanted. Her pain and her joy, both of which register equally across her seasoned face, will leave viewers breathless. 

How do our two communities band together in harmony? How can we integrate or at least move forward with respect and understanding? Perhaps the answer to this 21st-century conflict can be found in the writings of a first-century prophet: “There is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). 

Scenes from the life of Joseph give us a glimpse of the virtues of this laborer and upstanding Jewish man, the carpenter who will build something beautiful for the God of his forefathers.

My mother met my father at a wedding reception. She had been saying a novena to Joseph to help her find a spouse, and when she first laid eyes on my father, she knew at once that he was the man God intended for her. And she was right; my parents have been married for 54 years. Even now my mother will gladly tell you that it was Joseph who brought the two of them together.

This amazing man has always been my mother’s favorite saint. He was her patron when she was growing up: her guardian, provider, teacher, and father. St. Joseph quite literally raised her in the faith. As a child, she would go to Mass with only Joseph accompanying her. Through his prodding, she told her parents that she wanted to be confirmed and attend Catholic high school.

Joseph instilled within my mother the courage to explain how important her faith was to her and to confidently express it.

It is little surprise that when our family moved to Orange County, we settled in at Joseph parish. All five of us children attended the grade school; went regularly to Mass, confession, and adoration; and enjoyed what was arguably our second home. Mom would speak openly to Joseph, just as if he was physically with us in the house. She was so at ease with the friendship they shared that I never thought such behavior strange.

It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized that many Catholics don’t live the communion of saints the way my mother does and the way she taught us to.

Through my mother’s relationship with Joseph, I learned that the great fellowship of Christ’s companions that now share life with him are present to us in the mystical body of Christ. They can challenge, encourage, comfort, and care for us to the extent that we let them. These holy men and women of God are real friends to us; their presence in our lives is a great gift of God to which we do well to make recourse. They are alive in Christ, and they share his desire to gather the whole world to him.

Beloved Father

I’ve long wanted to explore the life Joseph. When I first began sharing with people this hope, many of them asked how such a project could be possible. Over and over again I was told, “But he never says a word” and “We know so little about him.” While it’s true that the Scriptures record no spoken words of Joseph, all four Gospel authors make reference to him, and Luke and Matthew speak of him directly.

On two key occasions, Matthew goes so far as to tell us what Joseph is thinking and feeling: He “considered” whether to send his pregnant betrothed away quietly (Matthew 1:20), and “he was afraid to go” back to Judea, a fear that an angel confirmed in a dream as justifiable (Matthew 2:22). Joseph is an icon of our faith precisely because there are no recorded words of his. I believe that words would be a distraction. His love of Our Lady, care for Jesus, obedience, faith, purity, simplicity, courage, and hope speak loudly from the home he built in Nazareth.

Joseph is the headmaster of that home school. And I believe that we know a great deal about Joseph—more than if he had penned a Gospel of his own—from the person he raised, a man we know a great deal about. The descriptions of Joseph’s life and character that follow, while rooted in the Scripture passages that mention him, are chiefly inspired by Jesus’s teachings. For some thirty years Jesus lived, prayed, celebrated, studied, and shared in the home Joseph established. The years in Nazareth were a real foundation upon which Jesus would build his saving ministry. Joseph is best known through Jesus’s words and deeds.

Joseph was the man who risked everything to care for Mary and her son, safeguarding them from harm and cherishing them with the purest love. His life is thus a catechism writ large, a flesh-and-blood testimony of what it means to live according to God’s will, with one’s mind and heart centered on Christ.

Man of Love

And in him we also see a man with a wholesome Marian spirituality. There are three critical moments of Joseph’s life recorded in Scripture: the time of his betrothal to Mary, the moment he learns she is with child, and the revelation in Joseph’s dream about her condition. Each offers a glimpse of the natural virtues of this laborer and upstanding Jewish man, the carpenter who will build something beautiful for the God of his forefathers.

These moments teach us about the transition from the old Law to the new and its resulting hope. They also indicate the shift that must occur in our own lives when God asks us to do the unimagined.

Historically speaking, Joseph is the father of the new covenant of God’s love and thus possesses an insight into the work of God that complements that of Mary. We can say then that Joseph doesn’t merely raise Jesus according to God’s plan: Joseph raises every Christian. He is rightly called the patron of the Universal Church because the attentive care he exercised on behalf of Mary and Jesus he continues to lavish upon us.

He loves the precious bride whom Jesus will one day present to God. He longs to help us live and express our faith. I encourage you to look at St. Joseph, to gaze upon this man who lived in such close proximity to our Lord. You will find a window that opens to the divine in vibrant ways. As my mother knew, St. Joseph has much to teach us.