Tuesday of the Fifth Week
Solemnity of Saint Joseph, spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Saint Joseph’s Day always falls in Lent, and has since first celebrated in the Middle Ages. The choice of the date of March 19 was likely related to the traditional dating of the Solemnity of the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary on March 25. In any case, though, the Lenten context makes a point about this man’s selfless sanctity. Joseph was “just,” “righteous,” as the Gospel of Matthew describes him, with the meaning that Joseph devoutly observed the Law of Moses. But concerning Joseph’s betrothal to Mary, that Law caused Joseph a terrible dilemma. “Joseph was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame...” (Matthew 1:19). Joseph’s betrothed wife was pregnant, and not by him. The Law was clear: Joseph “the righteous” should repudiate her. But, no: that would expose her to public shame and harsh punishment. So, Joseph, led by mercy and the revelation which that mercy rewarded, chose beyond the requirements of the Law.
There is something almost subversive about this feast, about a justice defined by mercy. Isn’t that the way, though, that God fulfills God’s promises, always in surprising ways exceeding human expectation and boundaries? Who could have guessed the Messiah would be conceived by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary? That he would be brought into the line of David not by Joseph’s begetting but by Joseph’s faith? Today we are celebrating a feast which honors and invokes a carpenter from a backwater village in an insignificant corner of the Roman Empire, who turns out to be the foster father and guardian of God’s Son, and, as Patron of the Universal Church, our guardian, too. How surprising (and subversive) is that!
Prayer
Richard Berube, SSE, ’66
emeritus professor, Religious Studies
First Reading: 2 Samuel 7:4-5a, 12-14a, 16
Psalm 89:2-5, 27, 29
Second Reading: Romans 4:13, 16-18, 22
Gospel: Matthew 1:16, 18-21, 24a
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