Sometimes in moments of blindness to pride and vanity, I let my mind imagine how great I am and what a good potential husband I am for someone because I have a good job and have a good amount of money saved in investments. I contemplate meeting my girlfriend’s father and at the dinner table, him asking me how I will provide for his daughter. Do I know anything about “stocks”, “bonds”, or “mutual funds”? Then I very self-deprecatingly but smugly relate to him my seemingly vast amount of knowledge of such things–in humility, not going into specific dollar amounts, unless he just HAS to know, and then I guess I am compelled to tell him. I imagine how impressed he will be, and how my girlfriend or fiancee will just be so awed by my financial prowess.

But then I realize that these thoughts are not so good–no doubt it’s the Holy Spirit tapping me on the shoulder. I take a mental step back, and I think about what I really have to offer my future wife. I know immediately in my heart that the best gifts I have to offer my wife are faith, hope, and love for God, as well as purity, courage, joy, peace, goodness, and gentleness. These virtues and fruits of the Holy Spirit (cf. Galatians 5:22 and 1 Corinthians 13) are largely invisible. They are not evident in a nice car, fat wallet, or body-builder muscles. They are on the inside, and yet, they are the real treasure that I have to give to my future wife.

Then I also realize that I am not nearly so far advanced in these virtues as I need to be. I have an idea of what it takes to be a good husband and father, because I have good friends who are already husbands and fathers. Then I examine myself and see how much I struggle with just taking care of my life as a single Catholic man, without a wife or children! So these thoughts sober me and help me to see I need to work each day on growing in these virtues, in cooperating with the Holy Spirit as he works so hard in me.

The Holy Family lived in poverty their entire lives. The Father so willed it, in order that Mary and Joseph could be centered all the more on spiritual riches, the greatest of which was their beloved Son, and so that Jesus would know all the sufferings and pain of the poorest of his brothers. They were a poor family, and yet the most wealthy family that has ever been, for true wealth in a family is love. And St. Joseph, a husband and father par excellence, became the model for all men, both single and married, by the noble and generous way he accepted God’s grace in the practice and perfection of every virtue, notably holy purity.

So may God foster in us men, through St. Joseph’s intercession, a true appreciation of our worth and increase us in these virtues that are the real treasure we have to give to our wives and families.