Fr. Paul D. Williams, Jr., St. Joseph's, Dalton, GA
I have learned in my life, and perhaps you have as well, that God seldom does what we expect him to do or would like him to do.
And certainly that is the case with the Incarnation, which we will commemorate on Christmas day. Those who were waiting and praying for the Messiah certainly didn’t expect him to come as a child, born of a Virgin in a stable in Bethlehem. Perhaps they expected this descendent of Kings to be born of a King, into a royal and noble family, with all the power, wealth and honor that entailed.
But God didn’t do what everyone was expecting him to do. Instead, he chose an obscure descendent of King David, a humble carpenter from Nazareth, to be the head of the family from which his Son would come. So, as we bring the season of Advent, this season of preparation, to a close, let’s look at St. Joseph.
The first thing to note about St. Joseph is his dilemma. God not only does the unexpected, but he puts Joseph in a tough situation. His wife was pregnant, and he did not yet know that she had conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit after the annunciation by Gabriel. Yet certainly he could not believe that she could have done something wrong. So how does he handle his dilemma? Since he is an “upright man, unwilling to expose her to the law”, he chooses to divorce her quietly because that will cause her the least harm. He was not interested in what would benefit him the most, but instead, he thought only of what was best for her. In fact, the shame would have fallen on him, because he would have been seen as a deadbeat who abandoned his fiancé. He was not only a just man, but he was a charitable man, willing to make sacrifices for the sake of others, and to give of himself.
Perhaps God was testing him, to see if he was worthy to be the foster father of Jesus, to see if he would have the qualities necessary to be a father to the Savior. But finally, the Lord sends an angel to tell him the rest of the story, to tell him what he must do. And that is the next thing to note about St. Joseph: when he awoke, the scriptures say, “he did as the angel of the Lord had directed him.” He did not question the Lord’s will; he did not second-guess what he had been told; he simply submitted himself to God’s will and went about his duty as he was told.
Again, God had acted in an unexpected way, and for St. Joseph, that meant that his life from that moment onwards was radically changed. Through the tradition of the Church, in the writings of the saints, and in a lot of Christian art, St. Joseph is pictured as an old man. Since he was the guardian and protector of Mary’s virginity, many in the church, in their excess of piety, thought that he must certainly be an old man. But, this attitude, this image, as Fulton Sheen once said, “betrays a lack of confidence in the ability of young people to live chaste lives, as if the condition for living holy purity is that one be old.” So isn’t it much more beautiful to picture St. Joseph as a young man who immediately said “yes” to God when he called. St. Joseph was a chaste man. Not all husbands are called to live perfect continence within marriage as he did, but all husbands are called to live and act chastely, not treating their wives or other women as objects, but instead treating them with respect and dignity.
And I do not find it too hard to believe that he would so joyfully accept God’s will for his life for he was already a just man who knew the joys of keeping the commandments and loving God and our neighbor as himself. After all, he was being called to participate in the greatest wonder in human history - the birth of the God-man, Immanuel, God is with us; he was being called to be the guardian and protector of this divine child, and he had the privilege to be the husband of the most marvelous woman who has ever existed, Mary.
And to top it all off, St. Joseph, at the command of the angel, had the privilege of giving that child the name of Jesus, “he who saves his people from their sins”, the name above every other name, the name at which every knee should bend, in the heavens and on the earth, the name that every tongue must confess as Lord.
There is a beautiful prayer in the tradition of the Church, which is especially appropriate for Advent and Christmas, “O blessed Joseph, happy man who privilege it was, not only to see and hear that God whom many a king has longed to see, yet saw not, longed to hear, yet heard not; but also to carry him in your arms and kiss him, to clothe him and watch over him! Pray for us, Blessed Joseph.”
Because he has been so highly honored, and because he was a man of such virtue, it is no wonder that, next to the Blessed Mother, he is considered the greatest of the Saints. Pope Paul VI once said, “St. Joseph is the model of those humble ones that Christianity raises up to great destinies; ... he is the proof that in order to be a good and genuine follower of Christ, there is no need of great things--it is enough to have the common, simple and human virtues, but they need to be true and authentic.”
So, as this Advent draws to a close, let us look to St. Joseph as a model of, as a just, honest, humble, obedient, hard working, chaste and pure man, who was always ready to do the Lord’s will. Because if we can model ourselves on him, then perhaps we will be responsive when the Lord does the unexpected in our lives.
