“ROSES, ROSES ALL THE WAY, THEY ARE WITH US HERE TO STAY …..

… in the merry month of May.” So goes the poem I wrote when I was young. Those were the days when I used to imagine that life was a bed of roses. But I was in my teens and feeling like standing on top of a mountain, I believed that I was Master of all I surveyed.

But life has taught me ‘the lesson’; that there is always the ‘last rose of summer’. Life, like the legendary tapestry is full of pin-holes, stitches, holes, knots, criss-srossing twine … but only from the back side, whilst looking at it from the face, the result is a work of art.

If God had wanted He could have given His beloved Mother and foster-father, Joseph, an easy way of life. Yet both were hand-picked from eternity because of their Faith in the Lord. And the testing continued all their life. Both must have had natural doubts. Let’s not take the ‘Annunciation’ of Mary lightly. Imagine your 14/15 year old daughter receiving the news that she is going to have a baby … without ever having contact with any man.

Every step of Mary’s life was guided by Faith, imagine her informing her mum and dad, her spouse about her being pregnant. Every Jewish girl wanted to get married and give birth to a boy, wishing and wanting that her boy would be the prophesied Messiah. But Mary felt she was unworthy of such an honour and instead offered to the Lord her virginity. If that is not humility, what is?

Volumes could be written about Mary, likewise about Joseph. He must have been chosen for a specific role; to be foster-father of the Son of God, Joseph was the father of the Most Sacred Heart, the father of the new Adam, Mentor of Jesus in his boyhood and teens. He accepted his role, not without doubts, but with Faith.

Both Mary and Joseph are Masters of Faith; they have no University degrees added to their name, they were poor, simple people. Joseph, one would expect, to have a Doctorate in Administration or even in Theology, as he was dealing with God-man.

Personally I believe that of all the virtues, they were endowed with, the outstanding virtue was ‘humility’. Jesus must have attended, and followed a course at the University of Nazareth, (which did not exist), and he specialized with First Class Honours in Humility, submitting Himself to a father-carpenter-builder and to a simple maiden … for thirty whole years, in an out-cast village.

He even carried this honour to the very end of His life, the Certificate was nailed above His head on the cross. No, for Jesus it was not ‘Roses, roses all the way.’   His foster-father is barely mentioned in the Holy Bible, the last reference was when the twelve year-old Jesus was found at the Temple, but then, Joseph, seems to walk out unobtrusively and quietly.

Mary, the world’s first love, it’s interesting to note that in the Liturgy of Mary we find writings about the creation of the world, and that Mary was present during the work of creation. For God there is no past and future, there’s always a ‘present’. Mary, the perfect human person, has always been ‘present’ in God’s mind and heart. 

The presence of Mary should be for us, “Roses, roses all the way , they are with us here to stay.”