Feast of Saint Joseph - March 21, 2023

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Ephrem Arcement OHC

The Feast of Saint Joseph (transferred), March 21, 2023

 

2 Samuel 7:4,8-16

Romans 4:13-18

Luke 2:41-52

Click here for an audio of the sermon

 

Hail, Joseph, full of grace, the Lord is with you.  Blessed are you among men.  Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.  Amen.

    To be honest, if I was putting together readings for the Feast of St. Joseph, I would have chosen neither the Old Testament nor the gospel passages the lectionary gives us.  In its place, I would have selected a passage from Genesis which highlights St. Joseph’s namesake, Joseph, the favorite son of Jacob through whom God would, through a series of extraordinary events, save his people.  And for the gospel I would have chosen a passage from the Gospel of Matthew, not Luke, where Joseph plays as important a role as Mary.  The through line in each of these texts would be that both hold up men divinely chosen through whom God works God’s plan of salvation; both involve righteous men with extraordinary patience and self-possession; and both were dreamers.   

    The story of the Joseph of Genesis is arguably the greatest narrative section of the entire Hebrew Bible.  Thrown into a pit and sold into slavery by his jealous brothers only to later find himself imprisoned—all to no fault of his own—Joseph’s misfortunes have a stunning turn around when, through his special, divinely inspired gifts, he finds himself as Potiphar’s chief steward giving advice to Pharaoh.  This story of the reversal of fortune serves to highlight that no matter how desperate we as God’s people may become—no matter how dark our prison cell—if the Lord is with us—we can expect the extraordinary.  There’s no limit to God’s saving power.  God’s plan cannot be thwarted no matter how hopeless our circumstances may seem.  It’s like Abraham hoping against hope and having a baby when he was 99 and Sarah his wife 100!

    The Joseph of Genesis was also a man of great integrity and self-possession.  When Potiphar’s wife tries to seduce him, he resists and flees the temptation only to be falsely accused by her which is what lands him in prison.  But the Lord was with righteous Joseph and brought him out of his prison and exalts him to become the prince of Egypt!

    The Joseph of Genesis was also a dreamer.  As a young boy he has intimations in dreams about being a famous ruler, and later in prison his gift of interpreting dreams is what leads him, and, in turn, his people, to freedom.  All because the Lord was with him.

    The characterization that Matthew gives to St. Joseph in his Gospel never has the Joseph of Genesis far from mind.  Beginning with the genealogy of Jesus, Matthew intends to highlight the promise of Abraham and David alike as being fulfilled through the line of Joseph.  God was present all along, from generation to generation, however hidden, only to be revealed at this precise moment in human history.  Joseph and his wife Mary stand, then, at the greatest turning point in human history and are the chosen vessels through which God’s greatest, most extraordinary work will occur.

    This all happens, at least in part, because Joseph was a righteous man.  He could have acted completely within the legal parameters of Israelite law by exposing his pregnant betrothed.  Rather, “not willing to expose her to shame, [he] decided to divorce her quietly.”  And after being informed in a dream of the truth, he humbly follows God’s instructions.  What quiet fortitude…what self-possession on display here in St. Joseph!  Rather than shaming another, he chooses to be shamed.  Rather than acting by the strictures of the law, he chooses to act in the fullness of grace.  Rather than protect himself, he protects his betrothed and her unborn child.      

    How does all this come about?  How does he find such a fund of grace?  Matthew is clear…because he was a righteous man, God would encounter him in his dreams and give him the grace to continue doing the righteous thing.  On four separate occasions, Joseph has divinely inspired dreams where he is directed by “the angel of the Lord” to protect his family from destruction and to assure that the Savior of the world would grow and become who he was destined to be.   

    Much more than a simple carpenter, then, St. Joseph plays a vital role in salvation history as the chosen man—the chosen righteous man—a model Jewish man—whose ears and heart are wide open and attentive to the voice of God.  His vocation as husband and father are quietly but forthrightly lived with unwavering integrity.  St. Joseph is much more than St. Joseph the Worker whose humble occupation was building things and teaching Jesus how to build things.  The true work of St. Joseph was ultimately to do the work of God which was the work of fidelity, obedience, and becoming the vessel through which God’s saving power flows.   

    Like father, like son!  More than just learning the techniques of carpentry, Jesus, no doubt, learned fidelity, obedience and how to become God’s instrument of salvation through his parents, not just through the One he would later come to call “Abba, Father.”  In fact, can it be that Jesus, at least in part, came to know God as “Abba, Father” so easily and quickly precisely because of the model given to him by St. Joseph?  I think so.

    My brothers, have we considered St. Joseph as a model for our monastic vocation?  We, too, are summoned to quiet fidelity, to listening carefully to God’s voice calling out to us, to courageously obeying that voice, and to becoming vessels of the extraordinary.  We, too, are called to create a family where, through our mutual love for one another, we find God manifest in our midst.  We, too, are called to be protectors of God’s pregnant presence allowing God to come to birth in all the open hearts that come here seeking to be reborn.  And we, too, are called to be dreamers—to dream of a world, and through God’s grace, to make alive and tangible a world straight from the heart of God—a world where each of us is the first to show respect to the other—where each of us supports the other with patience and listens to the other with tender concern—where no one pursues what he judges best for himself, but instead, what he judges better for someone else—where pure love is shown from brother to brother and where nothing is preferred whatever to Christ.  Through such quiet, yet zealous, fidelity and obedience to the rule of grace, might we not expect to become, all of us together, like St. Joseph, vessels of God’s extraordinary, saving presence?  Indeed, we may!
    
St. Joseph, pray for us!

St Joseph - March 19, 2021

 Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

The Rev. Matthew Wright

St Joseph  - Friday, March 19, 2021

2 Samuel 7:4,8-16

Romans 4:13-18

Luke 2:41-52

Click here for an audio version of this sermon

“I chose the glorious Saint Joseph as my master and advocate and commended myself earnestly to him… When Christ walked this earth, Joseph was his guardian; as a boy, Jesus called him ‘father’ and obeyed his commands.  It seems to me that Christ wants us to know that in heaven he still does everything Joseph asks…

“I wish I could persuade everyone to be devoted to this glorious saint, for I have great experience of the blessings that come through him from God. I have never known anyone to be truly devoted to him and render him particular services who did not notably advance in virtue, for he gives very real help to souls who commend themselves to him.  For some years now, I think, I have made some request of him every year on his festival and I have always had it granted.  If my petition is in any way ill-directed, he directs it aright for my greater good…

“I only beg, for the love of God, that anyone who does not believe me will put what I say to the test, and they will see by experience what great advantages come from commending themselves to this glorious patriarch and having devotion to him.  Those who practice prayer should have a special affection for him always… If anyone cannot find a master to teach them how to pray, let them take this glorious saint as their master and they will not go astray.”

Saint Teresa of Avila, writing in her autobiography.  “Those who practice prayer should have a special affection for him always…”

St. Joseph has been present in a particular way in my own life of prayer for the past eight years or so, after he showed up one day while I was in the “ethnic aisle” at the grocery store.  Somewhere near the Goya products, there were all of those tall votive candles, dedicated to different saints.  And typically my eye would have gone to Our Lady of Guadalupe or some other image of Mary.  But this day it didn't.  Instead, it went straight to Joseph—to this lone, yellow candle bearing his image—San José.  I didn't think much of it at first, but I kept being drawn back inexplicably to that candle and before I could get out of the aisle it had placed itself in my shopping cart.

It didn't take long to realize what was going on, because this was not long after my dad died.  I began to realize that I felt him—my dad—in whatever aura it is that surrounds St. Joseph.  I imagine the two of them were a lot alike—good-hearted, simple, quiet men who worked hard and had calloused hands.  And I realized that I needed Joseph, and my dad, with me in my prayer.  I needed their warm-heartedness and tender, quiet support.  I bought the candle, and lit it every day beside a picture of my dad when I prayed, and I still have the empty votive glass sitting in my office.

So, with my love of Joseph, I was a little annoyed when I first looked at the Eucharistic readings appointed for Joseph today.  We’re given a Gospel text in which he is not even named.  We’re simply told that “his [Jesus’] parents,” following the Passover Festival, discovered after a day’s journey on the road, that “the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem…”  And when they finally find him at the Temple, it’s Mary, not Joseph, who speaks: “his mother said to him, ‘Child, why have you treated us like this?’”  And he submits to his parents, and we’re told that “he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them.  His mother treasured all these things in her heart.”

Hold on!  What is going on here?!  This text is all about Mary and Jesus.  Joseph is quietly, actually silently, in the background.  And then it hit me—Oh, this is the perfect text.  This is what Joseph would want, this is who Joseph is.  It’s not about him, and he knows it, and that’s exactly where his saintliness lies.

Joseph never once speaks in the Gospels.  In Matthew’s account of the annunciation, which focuses on Joseph, an angel tells him in a dream to not be afraid to take Mary as his wife, and the text says, “When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel commanded him.”  With not a word in response; he just quietly, humbly surrenders to God’s will for his life.

In the parallel texts in Luke, in which Mary discovers her role in the unfolding drama, she engages the angel.  She questions before consenting (“How can this be?”).  She sings the Magnificat with Elizabeth.  She is active and vocal and center stage.  But not Joseph.  He recognizes that it’s not about him.  This story is going to be about Mary and Jesus, and his job is to make possible their work, their role, in the story of salvation.

Sometimes in our journeys we’re asked to be Mary—we’re called to question and to sing, to stand out in front.  But sometimes, probably more often, our work is to be like Joseph’s—to quietly nod, to accept the role being asked of us, and step into the background; to be that unassuming tent pole that holds open the space in which the drama unfolds, without taking any credit.  Everyone of us has been supported in this way, at some point, by a Joseph, who may have been so unassuming that to this day we don’t know the quiet prayer and support they gave us behind the scenes.

In Matthew’s Gospel, Joseph is called “a righteous man.”  “Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man…” Matthew says.  The Hebrew word here, behind our Greek text, is tzadik, a just or righteous one, and this is not a word used lightly in Scripture.  It doesn’t mean he was a “good guy.”  It means he stood in an altogether staggering order of holiness, as in “Noah was a righteous man [a tzadik], blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God.”

An understanding of the tzadikim, the righteous ones, develops in the Jewish mystical tradition that says that at any given time, there are always 36 righteous ones in the world, for whom God holds the world into existence.  It’s their hidden prayer and humility that keeps the world turning.  They’re often called the lamed vavniks, the 36, and it’s said that they are so humble that they have no idea they’re one of the 36, and they would never believe it if you told them.  So they remain essentially hidden saints.

Tzvi Elimelech Spira of Dinov, a famous Hasidic rabbi from Poland, wrote that “in every generation, there are great righteous people who could perform wondrous acts, but the generation is not deserving of that, so the stature of the righteous people is hidden and they are not known to the public; sometimes they are woodchoppers or water-drawers.”  Or, perhaps, carpenters from Nazareth.

Of this hidden vocation, carried by St. Joseph, Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet writes, “Among the different vocations, I notice two in the Scriptures which seem directly opposed to each other: the first is that of the apostles, the second that of St. Joseph.  Jesus was revealed to the apostles that they might announce Him throughout the world; He was revealed to St. Joseph who was to remain silent and keep Him hidden. The apostles are lights to make the world see Jesus.  Joseph is a veil to cover Him… [The God] Who makes the apostles glorious with the glory of preaching, glorifies Joseph by the humility of silence.”

This is why St. Teresa of Avila so rightly connects Joseph with the life of prayer, with our hidden, inner life: “Those who practice prayer should have a special affection for him always… If anyone cannot find a master to teach them how to pray, let them take this glorious saint as their master and they will not go astray.”

Joseph’s quiet, humble, and absolute surrender to the Divine Will, his perfect living of the hidden life, I believe invites another reading of Matthew’s account of the angel’s message to Joseph that differs from the one most of us are accustomed to.  We’re told that “before [Mary and Joseph] lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.”

And “Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man [a tzadik] and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.”  So we usually make an assumption here that Joseph plans to dissolve their betrothal because he assumes the child is “illegitimate.”  But there is another reading of these verses that I think is more in keeping with the spirit of Joseph the tzadik.  

So again, the text says that Mary “was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.”  Now Matthew’s account is told from Joseph’s perspective.  So who found Mary to be with child from the Holy Spirit?  Joseph.  Not, “he found her to be with child, and had no idea where the child came from.”  He found her to be with child from the Holy Spirit.  He believes her story from the beginning—that she, his betrothed, has become the tabernacle, the dwelling-place of God, the new Ark of the Covenant.

And in his humility, he accepts that God has other plans for her, far beyond a life in the home of a carpenter from Nazareth.  Who is he to have the Ark of the Covenant reside in his humble dwelling?  And so he’s willing to quietly step out of the story; God has bigger plans for Mary.  “But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘…do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife”—and this is usually translated with a period or a comma at this point—followed by “for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”  The meaning being something like “Don’t be afraid to take her as your wife, because the child isn’t illegitimate after all”—and so this would then be information Joseph’s getting for the first time.  But we’ve already been told that he discovered she was with child from the Holy Spirit.  And there is no period or comma in this text the Greek, which just as accurately reads, “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife because, or on account of the fact, that the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”  

The implication being that Joseph isn’t afraid to take the child into his home because he thinks it’s someone else’s, but because he knows it is conceived of the Holy Spirit, and who is he to take such holiness into his home?  His fear is “the fear of God”—his awe in the face of this tremendous mystery—and the angel says “Do not be afraid”—you in your humility and hiddenness are in fact the very one to carry this task.

I don’t know if this is an accurate reading of the text, but I love the Joseph who emerges in this reading—his humility and surrender becomes even more consistent throughout, and I also love the assurance, that yes, God does want to dwell in a humble carpenter’s home in Nazareth—that the story isn’t moving off to bigger and better things. 

How is this assurance for each of us this morning?  That whether seen or unseen, we are all given a vital role in the drama of God’s story.  And how might we learn from Joseph, the tzadik, the hidden, humble one, in his school of prayer?  Because “those who practice prayer should have a special affection for him always…”  How might we cultivate our own inner Joseph?  Our hidden life with God? 

May we each feel Joseph’s presence, today and always, his prayer and intercession never ceasing, may we be grateful for the Josephs who have quietly supported each of us along the way—you might call one of them today, if you know who they are!—and may we not fear being unseen ourselves or fear bringing the Divine into our own humble dwellings, knowing that we, with St. Joseph, are hidden with Christ in God.

Amen.

The Feast of St. Joseph -- The First Profession of the Monastic Vow by Br. Luc Simon Thuku, OHC

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Robert James Magliula, OHC
The Feast of St. Joseph
The First Profession of the Monastic Vow by Br. Luc Simon Thuku, OHC

2 Samuel 7:4,8-16
Romans 4:13-18
Luke 2:41-52

Click here for an audio version of this sermon and the rite of Profession.

It seems appropriate that we celebrate a monastic profession on the feast of St. Joseph. Joseph and monastic life have much in common, not only because tradition and culture have never quite known what to make of either, but more importantly, because of the virtues Joseph exemplifies---like steadfastness, courage, compassion, hope, faithfulness, and perseverance. All are required to live the monastic life with integrity. This makes Joseph the ideal model for the monastic. These virtues have brought Simon to the place he now stands today. Desire for God is not a merely personal, or even an eccentric choice. It is a consequence of what we are as humans. We are made to meet God, and it is in this encounter that we become simultaneously fully human and fully divine.¹ The only people who are transformed by this life, are people who feel safe, who feel their dignity, and who feel loved. That’s what we try to do for one another—offer relationships in which we can change. Human beings need a combination of safety and conflict to keep moving forward in life.

As you well know, Simon, initial formation takes us outside of our familiar framework and can conjure basic questions where meaning is challenged, decisions reconsidered, and doubts unearthed. It’s alarming and exhausting. It can drain us of joy. This is true now for all of us in these uncertain times. When our private little worlds go to dust, as St. Joseph’s did also, hope digs in the ruins of our heart for memory of God’s promise to bring good out of bad, joy out of sadness, and life out of death. Hope is not optimism in the face of the dire circumstances of this pandemic.  Hope is not founded on denial. Hope is made of memories which remind us that there is nothing in life we have not faced that we did not, through grace, survive. Hope is the certainty that something will make sense, regardless of how it turns out. In a dream an angel ignited hope in Joseph; in our own conversion, we can experience the same.

Today, Simon, as you make your commitment to continue to discern your call to this life, you remind all of us that the paschal mystery of Jesus’ dying and rising is the pattern of our monastic life. The vow gives less opportunity to run away from those parts of us that God is seeking to convert and transform. Our conversion is a sign of our commitment to allow God to continue to work within us. Day by day God reveals to us more and more of the true self we are made to be.

While we come here seeking God, it becomes more and more evident that God has sought us. In the depths of the heart we hear the invitation to abide with Christ. We cannot live this life apart from abiding in the love of Christ. He is the source of our life and love and all that flows from it in community. Our monastic life is the call to the all-inclusive love of God. Love is a transforming power. It is a disciplined habit of care and concern, that like all virtues, can be perfected only over a lifetime. Giving a witness to that love, leads deeper and deeper into the meaning of being chosen by Christ, and of preferring nothing to Christ.

Before Jesus’ birth, Joseph surveyed the mess he had absolutely nothing to do with and decided to trust that God was present in it. That same trust is required of all of us today. As Benedictines, stability provides the context for faithfulness in the instabilities of life which lie ahead for all of us. Faithfulness is a prerequisite to trust and intimacy. With divine love flowing through us we can see others and ourselves in our connectedness and wholeness. The vow does not put an end to struggle. Struggle stretches us beyond ourselves. It is what leaves us open to truth, however difficult it may be to accept. Without it, our faith would be the kind that happens around us but not in us. God intends us to live together in the fragility of human imperfection. So even though we will constantly fail, it is not the final word. In this we come to know ourselves, each other, and God.

Today, we are most like Joseph, presented with situations beyond our control, tempted to divorce ourselves from it, when an angel whispers hope in our ears as it did in his: “Do not be afraid, God is here.” It may not be business as usual, or how we had planned it, but God is present here too, if we will own it.

As you continue your discernment, Simon, the more honest you are in examining your own motives, the closer you are to being yourself. The more equipped you are to distinguish the person you want to be from the one everybody else wants you to be, the more likely you are to become it. Without the honesty it takes to unmask the self, there is no hope for liberation, let alone fulfillment. When we refuse to listen to the dreams that cry within us for fullness of life, we fossilize ourselves. When we give way to the obstacles that we create for ourselves, we doom ourselves to underdevelopment.²

To make a truly life-giving discernment, we all need to squarely face what it is that gives us life. We need to speak the truth of our interests, our abilities, our desires, our boredom, our dissatisfaction—even our long-time need to satisfy others. We need the help that comes from having our confusion and despair, our disappointment and anxiety accepted and understood by those who are not themselves threatened by what we might do with our own lives. We need the acceptance and encouragement of each other so we can move beyond fear to the freedom it takes to be who we are. The power that comes with self-discovery at any age catalyzes us. It drives the young; it surprises the middle aged; it emboldens those who might be tempted to declare life over before it has even truly begun. Our fundamental obligation in obedience is to be or to become what God wills. To do what God wills is secondary. We act according to what we are, so that we can stop doing what everyone else wants us to do and begin to care more about what God has made us to do.

The Gospel gives us an assurance that we are operating inside of an abundant, infinite Love.³ Within that abundance, Simon, it’s time for you to take the next step. We give great thanks that you’ve decided to do so, as we continue this journey together.  +Amen.

1. Michael Casey, Grace: On the Journey to God (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2018),41.
2. Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening to the Voice of Vocation (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,
2000), 49.
3. Adapted from Richard Rohr: Essential Teachings on Love, eds. Joelle Chase and Judy Traeger
(Orbis Books: 2018), 224-225.

Feast of St Joseph - Mar 19, 2016

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Reinaldo Martinez-Cubero, n/OHC
Feast of Saint Joseph - Sunday, March 19, 2016

2 Samuel 2: 4, 8-16
Romans 5: 13-18
Luke 2: 41-52

Sculpture of the Holy Family
at the convent of the Sisters of St Joseph in Brentwood, NY

Saint Joseph has been present in my life since I was born, really. I was born on this day in 1966. I was educated at the Academia Santa Mónica in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It was a school founded in the nineteen-forties by Augustinian Priests from Spain, who had intended to staff the school with Augustinian Sisters. When the Augustinian Sisters were not available, the Friars called on the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Brentwood, Long Island. The Sisters of Saint Joseph were in those days known for their missions in education all over the world.

Since I entered the monastery, the novitiate has attended conferences held at the Mother House of the Sisters of Saint Joseph in Brentwood. It has been a very happy experience for me to get to have short visits with Sister Vivina Gracia CSJ, who was the principal of my beloved alma mater in the seventies when I was there, and who is now back at the Mother House. To say that these women were a huge influence and helped shape the basic principles by which I have lived all my life would be an understatement. They were firm, but kind educators who instilled in us a sense of self-discipline and responsibility. They taught us about respect for others, justice, and non-violence. They taught us about God’s presence and love in an evolving world.

But, who was Saint Joseph? Well, I will share with you my own version of the story. It is the story of Saint Joseph and the Holy Family according to me, and inspired by the Gospels. I do so, NOT, in any way, to debunk or disrespect the Gospel stories, which, while not factual but true, are, I believe, fundamental to our faith, as the early testimony of the significance that Jesus came to have in the lives, experience, and thought of first century Christians.

Joseph was a carpenter and craftsman who lived in a small peasant village called Nazareth. He was a hard-working man, and was known by many as a just and righteous man. When he was about thirty years old, he was engaged to a very young woman called Mary, who was about thirteen years old. They eventually married, and shortly after, Mary became pregnant.

One night an angel of God appeared to Joseph in a dream, and told him that he was to be the foster father of the child Mary was carrying in her womb. The child was of God, and Joseph was to name him Jesus because he would come to save the world. When Joseph awoke he was troubled and confused, and didn’t know what to make of these things. When he shared the dream with Mary, she was amazed, and told him that an angel of God had also appeared to her while she was praying. The angel told her that the child she was carrying was from God, that she was favored, and that God was with her.

In those days a decree required that all people be registered. So Joseph, and a very pregnant Mary set out for Joseph’s native town of Bethlehem in Judea, which was about 80 miles north of Nazareth. It was a very difficult journey due to Mary’s condition. Once in Bethlehem, it was evening by the time they were registered, and they went to stay at the dwelling place of Joseph’s relatives. It was a humble place, small and crowded, and the only place where Mary and Joseph could be was where people in those days brought their cows and mules indoors. By the time they arrived Mary went into labor. It was a frightening night, as giving birth in those days was a dangerous event and often babies and/or their mothers did not survive. But the child did survive, as did Mary. She wrapped the baby in swaddling cloth and laid him in a manger, and Joseph named the child Jesus as the angel of God had told him, which means “God saves”.

Joseph and Mary stayed in Bethlehem for some years, and one day when Jesus was about two years old, Joseph had another dream in which an angel told him he was to flee with his family to Egypt. King Herod was about to send his troops to kill all boys who were two years or under. Joseph and his family travelled to Egypt, which was over two hundred miles. They settled there for some years. And then, one day, the angel appeared to Joseph once again and told him that Herod had died. It was now safe for them to return to the land of Israel. So, Joseph and Mary and their children (for by this time Jesus had siblings) returned to Israel and made their home in Nazareth.

When Jesus was twelve years old his family made their yearly journey to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. When the festival had ended the family began their journey home. They travelled a whole day before realizing that Jesus was not with them. Mary and Joseph frantically looked for him among their relatives and friends who were travelling with them, but did not find him, so they returned to Jerusalem. After searching for two days, they finally found their son in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening, and asking questions. Mary said to Jesus: “Why have you treated us this way? Your father and I have been searching for you in great anguish!” Jesus replied: “But, didn’t you know I would be here, in my Father’s house?” At that moment Joseph remembered what the angel of God had told him in that dream before Jesus was born, that he was to be the foster father of the child, and he understood. All earthly parents are foster parents, whether or not they are biological. God is our legitimate mother and father. They returned to Nazareth and Jesus continued to increase in wisdom.

Joseph taught Jesus how to pray, and how to work. He was a righteous man, but to him, to be a righteous person according to the law was not enough. So he taught Jesus about God’s righteousness and mercy. He taught Jesus to be willing to be empty, so he could be filled and molded by the grace of God’s transforming, and redemptive power. Joseph understood that fatherhood is much more than a mere fact of biological generation. He invested himself in the spiritual and moral formation of Jesus. Joseph’s faith was the foundation of Jesus’ faith and understanding of God, the Father.

Joseph also taught his son the trade of carpentry, and passed on to Jesus the values required to become a good carpenter. These values would serve him well in his later ministry, a ministry he intended to start just a few years later. But sadly, Joseph died, and Jesus, being the oldest child, became the new head of the family. During these years, he grew in stature and favor with God and in the eyes of other people. And when his youngest siblings had become of age, Jesus left his family to begin his ministry.

Jesus would eventually come to teach his disciples how to pray, and when he began that prayer by saying, “Our Father in heaven…” Jesus introduced to the disciples a new name for God, which was “Abba”. When Jesus called God “Abba”, he was reflecting his relationship with Joseph. When Jesus told the story of the prodigal son, it was a reflection of Joseph, who taught his son about a righteousness that would manifest itself by giving himself in love for others.

In Jesus, his disciples would come to witness the human and the divine coexisting. He would become the model, the exemplar, the promise, and the guarantee for which the world had long waited. He would come to be the savior of the world by giving himself in love to bring us out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, and out of death into life. Little did Joseph know that his son would come to embrace that love and mercy expressed through his crucifixion, and revealed in his resurrection. The righteousness Joseph taught his son would not protect him from the blows and wounds of human injustice and bigotry, but it would free him to face such destructive forces wrapped in the graceful love of the living God he called “Abba”.

Saint Joseph, most just, most righteous, most loving husband, most obedient, most faithful, and guardian of the world incarnate: pray for us! Amen.

St Joseph - Mar 19, 2015

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Roy Parker, OHC

St Joseph – Thursday, March 19, 2015

2 Samuel 7:4, 8-16

Romans 4:13-18

Luke 2:41-52

Jesus and Joseph working together

This will be in three parts.

(1) Dispelling the notion of Joseph as an impotent old man.

(2) Bernardine of Sienaʼs Testimonial.

(3) Apprenticeship as a Medium of the Silence between Joseph and Jesus.

1. Dispelling the Notion of an Impotent Joseph

Regarding what Iʼll call the Hallmark legend of St. Joseph, the art critic Waldemar Januszak emphasizes the preponderance of Josephʼs representation as an old man and sees this as the need “to explain away his impotence: indeed to symbolize it. In Guido Reniʼs Nativity, Mary is about fifteen, and he is about seventy - for the real love affair is between the Virgin Mary and us. She is young, she is perfect, she is virginal - it is Josephʼs task to stand aside and let us desire her, religiously. 

It takes a particularly old, a particularly grey, a particularly kindly and a particularly feeble man to do that. It takes a Joseph. Banished in vast numbers to the backgrounds of all those gloomy stables in all those ersatz Bethlehems, his complex iconographic task is to stand aside and let his wife be worshipped by the rest of us. He is Godʼs cuckold. And art has no choice but to point this out - while, of course, appearing not to.”

Au Contraire! Most obviously a particularly old, a particularly grey, a particularly kindly and a particularly feeble man would simply not have the chops to be the patriarch of a household, to own & operate a going carpentry enterprise, to organize everything and slip out of town by night with an expectant mother, and to avoid bandits throughout the round trip, not to mention pitching camp somewhere in Egypt. Sounds to me more like Clint Eastwood.

2. Bernardine of Sienaʼs Testimonial

The book “Celebrating the Saints” has the following testimonial to Joseph by Bernadine of Siena: “ . . . Christ cannot deny to Joseph the same intimacy, respect and high dignity which he gave him on earth, as a son to his father. We should rejoice that in heaven Christ completes and perfects all that he gave to Joseph in Nazareth.” But in Jerusalem Maryʼs verbal dope slap to her son counters this: “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you with great anxiety.” Alternately, “Son, you may have won an Emmy for your Bar-Mitzvah, but that doesnʼt excuse this stupidity.”

Bernadine of Siena thinks Joseph and Jesus had a model relationship, but the cheekiness of the precocious and gifted son is already pointing to the problems of his hormone-laden teenage years. On the other hand he might also have said to his parents, “Have I been with you these twelve years and you still couldnʼt divine where I was likely to be?”

3. Apprenticeship as a Medium of the Silence between Jesus and his Carpenter Father

Joseph, of course, is among the few blessed of whom nothing is supposedly known beyond the sparse NT record, but there has been a presumed discovery in the apocryphal Gospel of the Childhood of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to St. Peter which testifies that Joseph was Grand Master of Local 19 of the Nazareth Carpentry and Cabinet Makersʼ Union. As such he was a master of the apprentice training technique by which candidates practiced a method of ego-disablement which connected them more immediately and effectively to their work at hand while also erasing concern about the results of the work.

This training in ego-disablement, therefore, would have been part of his young sonʼs apprenticeship in the family livelihood, incorporating significant periods of what would today be called sitting meditation combined with tool manipulation.

Hence the cultivation of non-verbal communication between master and student which might explain the curious silence between Joseph and Jesus on this occasion of the Temple Incident.