During the season of Advent, we contemplate some of the
great biblical figures: the Blessed Mother, John the Baptist, Elizabeth &
Zechariah and their role in God’s plan for our salvation. And on this year, on
the final Sunday of the Advent season we are given to contemplate St. Joseph in
our Gospel reading. So, let us consider three lessons from St. Joseph to help
us prepare for the celebration of Christmas.
First, St. Joseph teaches us the importance of silence. How
many words from the lips of St. Joseph can we find in Scripture? None!
Not a word. He doesn’t say
anything. He is a man of silence.
Someone once asked St. Padre Pio, “What language does God
speak?” And Padre Pio said, “God speaks silence”. The person then asked, well, what language
should I pray in, what language does God understand best, and Padre Pio said,
“silence”. Pope Francis celebrated Mass
with a group of American Priests a few years ago. And in his homily he said, “May
the Lord give us all the grace to love silence.” “Silence,” he said, “helps us
to discover our mystery: our mystery of encountering the Lord, our mystery of
walking through life with the Lord.”
The song ‘Silent Night’ still remains one of the popular
Christmas hymns, which reminds us the need to become silent as we contemplate
the Christmas mysteries. What a powerful irony: a beautiful song about quiet,
calm, and silence. Certainly, one of my favorite moment each year is on
Christmas Eve, in those quiet hours before midnight Mass. I like to sit in a
dark room, and listen to the quiet.
It was his quiet of soul that enabled St. Joseph to be attuned
to that important heavenly message. Joseph, we read was facing a terrible
decision. His betrothed had been found with child through the Holy Spirit. In
his humility, Joseph assumed that he was not part of this strange and
mysterious plan. The Holy Torah, the Mosaic Law, directed him to divorce his
betrothed who had become pregnant outside of marriage, and so Joseph quietly
decided to end their betrothal.
And in this state of obedience, humility, and quiet, heaven
pierced his mind. The angel of the Lord to appeared to him, and gave direction,
gave him courage, and gave him insight into the identity and mission of the
child—he is the savior.
So too, with us. In the messiness of our lives, when we are
facing difficult decisions, we must commit to obeying God and becoming quiet
and open before Him. And when we do, we will, like Joseph be granted direction,
courage, and insight.
In these final Advent days, do not be afraid to make excuses
for silence. To turn off the noise, to sit by the tree or the nativity scene,
and to become silent in order to attune your minds and hearts to heaven. May
our souls in silent stillness wait for the coming of Christ.
So that’s lesson number one, to imitate St. Joseph’s Advent
Silence. Lesson number two. St. Joseph teaches
us that actions speak louder than words.
In the Gospel, Joseph wakes from his dream of the angel, and
immediately did as God had commanded him: he took Mary into his home. St. Joseph reminds us that the Christian life
isn’t about giving God lip-service. That
when the Lord calls upon us to reach out to someone in need, we need to respond
generously.
This often requires great effort on our part. For so often,
we expect God to fit our lives. We minimize the demands of faith, when they get
in the way of our plans. But Joseph shows us that the opposite is necessary. We
must be willing to change for God. We must willing to alter our plans for God,
to make God the first priority, to put everything in God’s service, holding
nothing back.
For Joseph, taking Mary into this home, and becoming her
chaste spouse was likely not according to the plan of his life. And even if she
hadn’t conceived through the Holy Spirit, the wedding, was likely months or
even a few years off. His home was not ready for her. The home was not ready
for the raising of a child. But when God gives him a command, Joseph gets to
work, intensely preparing for the birth of the Messiah, rearranging his life
around the priorities of God.
So lesson number two, St. Joseph teaches us the priority of
acting according to the commands of God, of rearranging our lives, reorienting
our lives for God, working intensely for God’s will, especially in acting upon
holy inspirations.
And finally, lesson number three, because Joseph made his
heart quiet and open for God, because he was willing to reorient his life to
Christ, God gave Joseph the ability, the energy, the courage, and the gifts to
accomplish monumentally difficult tasks.
Joseph, taking Mary into this home meant opening himself to
the shame of his community. His community would have soon realized that Mary
was pregnant, and would have assumed that he was the father. They would assume
Joseph had not practiced chastity prior to marriage as God’s law demanded,
opening him to much greater social stigma than in our own day, stigma that would
certainly affect his ability to provide for his family.
Additionally, Joseph would be called upon by God to guard
and protect his family in many ways: he would protect Mary as they journeyed to
Bethlehem for the census, he would find shelter in a stable when no inn would
admit them, and he would be called upon by God to protect his family as they
fled Israel when King Herod sent his soldiers to slaughter the Christ-child.
God gave Joseph monumentally difficult tasks, but also the
grace to do them. Again, Joseph’s faith, his life of prayer, his righteousness
opened him to the guidance, courage, and fortitude he needed.
So too with us. When facing grave difficulties, God provides
grace, not necessarily to accomplish our own will, but God’s. God gives us
grace to resist temptation, he gives us grace to speak hard truths to loved ones
who are making poor choices, he gives us strength to work against true injustice,
or to cope and carry on in the face of overwhelming grief, he gives us patience
to endure difficulties gracefully.
St. Joseph reminds us that through trial and difficulty,
when entrust ourselves to God, when we practice virtue and righteousness
particularly when it is difficult, we are refined like gold in a furnace, we
become the people God made us to be, and role models for those of weaker faith.
May St. Joseph helps us to prepare for Christ at Christmas
and to break-in to our lives ever anew, by teaching us to enter into God’s
silence, challenging our complacencies, urging us to trust God in our
challenges, and to have courage for the spreading of our faith for the glory of
God and salvation of souls.
