A Meditation for St Joseph's Day
St Joseph, husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary, comes and goes quickly in Scripture. Quickly, but not quietly.
Almost all we know about St Joseph comes from a handful of verses in St Matthew’s Gospel. He was betrothed to the Blessed Virgin, but, when he learned she was pregnant, “he was,” the Gospel says, “minded to put her away privily,” to quietly divorce her. Regardless of what he thought of her, he didn’t need that.
While he pondered (and you can imagine the internal conflicts and sense of betrayal that fed his pondering), an angel appeared to him in a dream, telling of Mary’s Child as fulfilling ancient prophecies, redeeming Israel and establishing the Kingdom of God. As Mary is the Woman of Faith, Joseph is shown to be the Man of Obedience. Both listened to God’s call and obeyed. As a result of their faithful obedience to God’s call, neither of their lives went as they’d expected from that day.
Joseph made his generous resolution about Mary (technically, he could have called for her to be stoned), even though he no doubt was hurt, perhaps embittered, by the unwelcome news. His daytime resolution faded under the influence of a nighttime dream, a visitation of angels.
Joseph gave himself to God. He gave God his doubts and fears—and even his hopes for the future. He gave up everything he knew—his village, his reputation—to care of the Virgin and the Child God entrusted to him. He gave up his anger, and it turned his life upside down: protecting and providing for St Mary and her Child led him from the narrow streets of Nazareth to Bethlehem and nearby Jerusalem, where he and his family were visited by eastern mages, hunted by Herod’s soldiers, made an escape to exotic Egypt, and finally, after the evil king’s death, slowly plodding their way back to the hills of Galilee. Not the staid carpenter’s life he’d anticipated!
He gave up his hopes and plans and turned his life to God, and because he did, God did with him wondrous, sometimes scary things. Not a bad patron for us here at St Joseph’s parish—where God calls each of us individually and all of us together to follow St Mary’s faith and St Joseph’s obedience.
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