Saint Joseph - The
Unusual Man
by Father Charles
Irvin
He could have exposed
her to the shame
of a public trial,
but did not.
The Law categorized
her as an adulterer
(Deuteronomy 22:23-27), the punishment
being stoning to death.
He, instead, gave her
a love so deep that we can hardly understand
or plumb anywhere near its depth.
He could have severed
any commitments, legal and otherwise, to her;
he could have "put
her away". Instead he
took her into
his heart.
He was Joseph. She
was Mary.
Joseph, (it's almost trite to say it) was
an unusual man.
How many men do you know who make major decisions on the basis of their dreams?
How many men are into what is called "Dream Therapy"?
The notion of a woman's intuition is widespread and well-known, but how
many men do you know who make decisions based on their "gut
feelings"? Some, perhaps, but not many I daresay. Yet Joseph did. As a matter of fact, you might want to check
out in your bible just how many major decisions he
made based on what he received in his dreams. It may surprise you. Joseph, you see, was an unusual
man.
When someone tells me that God spoke to
them in a dream my mind's first reaction is: "well, they dreamed that God spoke to them."
In the case of Joseph, however, my
rational, reasonable
and intelligent response would be quite wrong. So instead of acting on noisy
public voices, or even on what his intellectual and rational
mental processes told him, Joseph took his
decision in the quiet privacy of his heart.
He reasoned
with his faith, and his
faith gave him reason.
So he found his
decision in his inner self,
in his soul. Joseph
was a man of unusual faith; Joseph was an unusual
man.
Where within ourselves do we find the virtue,
the power, of courage?
We certainly don't find it among the rational, reasonable,
and "safe" things to do.
No. Courage is found rather in the heart, not in
the mind. And Joseph was a
man of unusual courage. Joseph was an unusual
man.
Perhaps the greatest compliment God paid
to Joseph came to
him after he died.
When God's expression of Himself (namely the eternal
Word that became human flesh) grew in wisdom, grace
and knowledge before
God and before mortals...
when Jesus Christ grew into adult maturity
and became our Teacher, He used the best word, the best example available
to Him as one of us. He
used the best example that would depict what kind of a God
God really is. Jesus
taught us to call God the way He called Joseph -- "pappa",
"abba", Father.
What a legacy Saint Joseph has given us!
What a gift, particularly in these days when
we all suffer so much from absent, remote
and distant fathers who
have given us the opposite of Joseph's example, life,
faith and love.
Saint Joseph was an unusual man.
It is an unusual man who lives like Joseph. Perhaps that's why there are so few of
them!
Matthew 1:18-25
Now this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came
about. When His mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was
found with child through the power of the Holy Spirit. Joseph her husband, an upright man
unwilling to expose her to the law, decided to divorce her quietly. Such was his intention
when suddenly the angel of the Lord appeared in a dream and said to him: "Joseph, son
of David, have no fear about taking Mary as your wife. It is by the Holy Spirit that she
has conceived this Child. She is to have a Son and you are to name Him Jesus because He
will save his people from their sins." All this happened to fulfill what the Lord had
said through the prophet:
"The virgin shall be with Child
and give birth to a Son,
and they shall call Him Emmanuel,"
a name which means "God is with us." When Joseph awoke he did as the angel of
the Lord had directed him and received her into his home as his wife. He had no relations
with her at any time before she bore a son, whom he named Jesus.
Pull out your bible now, and read Matthew 1:18-25.
Try to get into Saint Joseph's heart, mind
and soul. Imagine yourself facing what he faced. Did he
do what he did because he
felt good about doing it? Or did he do what he did because he
was convinced of Mary's integrity, virtue
and innocence? Here she
was, after all, unexpectedly and inexplicably pregnant. What should he
do? He was, as the bible
reports, a man of honor, a man
of integrity and strength. He
was a righteous man...
and the one to whom
he was engaged has suddenly turned up
pregnant! Can't you imagine the feelings and
emotions that must have swept over him? Yet he
did not act on them.
How often are you tempted to act
on the basis of your feelings? How about
your children? Your sons and daughters who are struggling with the process of
maturation?
In all of the furor over the state of morals in our public
officials, as well as in our own families, it might help us, in sorting things out, to pay
attention to what decisions should be made on the basis of
feelings and what decisions
should be made on the basis of convictions.
Likewise, you can offer your children, as well as all of your loved
ones, an important vision by calling upon them to make
their decisions and to build their lives on the solid rock of convictions and not on the shifting sands of
emotions and feelings.
What better example can we have before us than that of Saint
Joseph, that rock-solid man whom God
has made to be the Patron of His Church?
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