The silent, yet eloquent St. Joseph
During
this season Matthew wants us to focus on Joseph. Not a single word of
Joseph is recorded. He dreams, listens and acts. He passes through the
Gospel like a shadow. He appears to have been a man without a message.
He was so ordinary that little could be said of him to those who would
come after. And yet, he was chosen by God for the most important task
one can think of: to be the husband of the Virgin Mary and so protect
her, and the foster father of Jesus, the Son of God, and bring Him up
and teach Him to be a mature person.
Matthew
calls him a just man. Imagine: His fiancée Mary had been away to help
her cousin Elizabeth. Returning after three months he discovers that she
was pregnant, but not by him. Imagine the shame and hurt that he must
have experienced. It must have been a heavy blow for him. And this time
it was not a bad dream – it was real. His honesty would not allow him to
marry an adulteress and pretend the child was his. Neither would he
expose the woman he loved to shame and punishment but divorce her
quietly. Obviously, he loved Mary and though the evidence pointed to the
opposite, he still believed in the goodness of his fiancée. Without
words St. Joseph makes us aware of two points.
Our
world today has become very noisy. There is no silence anymore. It
seems that many of us are afraid of silence because in silence we have
to confront ourselves. And confronting ourselves we might discover
something that we don’t like and would have to change. But to change
ourselves is painful and so we avoid it and become more and more
superficial. Here, St. Joseph impresses on us the importance of silence.
A
second lesson that St. Joseph teaches us today is not to judge and
condemn a person immediately but to see first what is good in a person.
St. Joseph – a wise man! We would do well to accept his lessons so that
in this noisy, stressful season we find some peace and prepare for the
real Christmas. Fr. Rudy Horst, SVD
REFLECTION QUESTIONS: Do you avoid quiet times and silence? Do you easily judge a person without knowing all the details?
Lord,
I thank You for presenting us today St. Joseph. Yes, Lord, it is in
silence and quietness that I can encounter You. Make me love silence
more.
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