No such thing as ‘ordinary’

FOR many of us during this latest lockdown it has become harder and harder to distinguish one day from another.

All the usual markers have gone. So, you would be forgiven if you had failed to notice that this week we celebrated two significant “Holy Days” – holidays, in the Christian calendar. Wednesday was St Patrick’s Day, but without any of the usual celebrations and parades, either in Ireland or here in Nottingham, it probably passed you by. And Friday, was the feast of St Joseph, a holy day that gets little recognition even at the best of times.

In our collective psyche we associate Joseph with Christmas. For a few weeks each year he takes centre stage.

Nativity plays up and down the country are packed with proud parents sitting on the edge of their seats as their beloved child, tea-towel precariously tied around their head, recounts the familiar story of the journey to Bethlehem and the birth of Jesus. Joseph and donkey then exit stage left, never to be thought of again until next Christmas.

I’m not surprised that St Joseph doesn’t play the same role in our society as say St George or St Patrick. It’s hard to compete with tales of slaying dragons and banishing snakes from Ireland, when like Joseph, you are just an ordinary guy living what appears to be an ordinary life.

So, what do we know about Joseph? Well, from the Gospel stories we know that Joseph married Mary after God, in a dream, invited him to become Jesus’ stepfather. We know that soon after Jesus was born his very life was in danger as King Herod decreed all baby boys in the area were to be killed, and Joseph did what any parent would do and takes his child to a safe country. We know he worked as a carpenter.

Joseph led an ordinary life: the life of a husband, stepfather, and worker. Yet this ordinary man said ‘yes’ to doing the ordinary in an extraordinary way.

Just like parents who have juggled work with home schooling, care workers who have lived on-site to keep residents in care homes safe, shop workers who have dealt with our frustrations as we adjusted to queuing and social distancing, cleaners risking their own safety to keep us safe. In a year when we have learned just who it is we really depend on, maybe we can honour the quiet saints. Those, like St Joseph, who reveal that actually there is no such thing as “ordinary”, because anything done with patience, kindness, fortitude, faithfulness and love, becomes “extra-ordinary”.

■■Katrina Alton is a member of the congregation of Sisters of St Joseph Of Peace