Bulletin Column from December 18, 2022

Dear Friends at Saint Frances Cabrini Parish and Saint Mary’s Immaculate Conception Parish:

Praised be Jesus Christ! We find ourselves this Sunday in what are sometimes referred to as the “late Advent” days of this rich season of preparation for the coming of the Lord, which are the stretch of days where the Church focuses our attention on the events leading up to the birth of Jesus as a child. We all know the main outlines of this familiar story, and we know the main characters. Each year we meet them anew in a way that brings comfort, as all favorite and familiar stories tend to do.

This year on the 4th Sunday of Advent, Lectionary Year A, the central character for our reflection is Saint Joseph. He is the one chosen by God to be the guardian of the child Jesus and his Mother. Matthew’s Gospel describes him simply as a righteous man, and we can infer from this simple description that Joseph was a man with a profound depth of character. As he is presented with the news that the woman to whom he is betrothed is with child, he searches his heart for the appropriate response to something so unexpected and unorthodox. The Mosaic Law dictated that such a situation was scandalous, and for the sake of protecting what is sacred about the marriage covenant, the Law allowed harsh measures to be used against the woman.

Joseph decides that he needs to divorce the mother of Jesus. It would be a mistake to think that he did this out of some type of spite, or jealousy, or territorial ownership of Mary, all of which would be the ordinary response of ordinary men who learn that a wife appears to have been unfaithful with another man. On the contrary, the righteous Joseph was probably trying to find some way to both honor the law as well as protect the dignity and reputation of Mary, choosing a penalty of least harm to all involved. Or, possibly it was the case that Joseph did have some keen sense that whatever was happening with Mary had divine fingerprints all over it, and out of a sense of deep humility, he decided that he was not worthy of the job of being the custodian of this emerging miracle. In the face of something so grand, he would just quietly step back.
We can only speculate about what his exact motives were, however what is clear is that God needed to actively intervene in the situation in order to reassure Joseph that he really was the right man for the job that lay ahead of him, and that the child’s existence really was of divine origins. God has a plan. What must any righteous person do when God makes it clear that he has a plan, even though it may be the case that following along with this plan is going to entail risks and sufferings? The righteous person places his or her trust in God and chooses to walk forward. Maybe the whole situation is a mystery. Maybe it is not going to be explained by God to all the players involved in some explicit manner. Maybe the righteous person lives with some nagging interior voice that shouts out: “you are not worthy of this, ready for this, qualified for this!” Only God’s gentle command to not be afraid is able to silence that voice. God reassures the person who is paying attention that there is a plan, and that God picks who he wants to carry it out, regardless of how qualified they themselves might feel for it. A righteous person obeys because of faith, choosing to believe that God knows the situation and the persons in question even better than they know themselves.

As such, Joseph is a great model of trust and courage. Life holds unexpected twists and turns for us all, and our temptation when they happen is often the same as the one faced by Saint Joseph: to back out of the plan of God. “Do not be afraid,” he is told, for all of this is part of God’s plan. Placing his trust in God’s word, Joseph quietly and simply chooses to move forward, making it his daily duty to care for the child and his mother with all of his energies. He chooses to devote his entire life to caring for a household of someone else’s creation, namely: God’s. His response and his attitude, and his decision to take God at his word even when he doesn't fully understand it, is an example for us to follow in our own lives. We must not be afraid to believe, with Saint Joseph, that God always has a plan.