The Solemnity of St. Joseph, March 20, 2023

Matthew 1, 16; 18–21; 24

Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary. Of her was born Jesus who is called the Christ. Now this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found with child through the Holy Spirit. Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly. Such was his intention when, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home. 

The genealogy St. Matthew gives here has St. Joseph’s father as a man named Jacob, but Luke 3, 23 tells us that his father was a man named Heli.  The early Church historian Julius Africanus (d. 240) hands on the tradition that Joseph’s mother was a woman named Estha who first married Heli, but when he died without giving her a son she was married by his brother Jacob, according to Jewish Law, and it is through him that Joseph was born.  Legally, then, the child Joseph had Heli for his son but in the natural sense he was the son of Jacob.  Joseph was of the tribe of Judah and was probably born in Nazareth.  Jacob his father, a carpenter or other skilled workman (the Greek term is not precise), probably trained him in his craft from his early youth, though he need not have lived with the mother and child since he presumably had his own wife and family and had only performed his duty in producing an heir for his brother.  Joseph may then have had half brothers with him in the workshop and half sisters in Jacob’s house with their mother.  

The apocryphal book called the Proto-Gospel of James (composed perhaps around the year 100) hands on the tradition that Joseph was an old man at the time of his marriage to the Blessed Virgin Mary — and the Greek Orthodox Church golds this — but it is not likely because the custom was for young women to marry young men so that they might have many children.  Even if Mary’s supreme holiness were recognized by the people of the time, they would have understood her destiny as being a mother with a wealth of children.  Because of most people married not only within their tribe but within their clan, Joseph would not have looked far beyond Nazareth for a bride, although since his family originally hailed from Bethlehem, he might have thought of going there to find one.  as Nazareth at that time boasted only of five hundred people or less and so he would have known Mary, the daughter of Joachim and Anna, from childhood.  He would not have known her well personally, as the sexes were kept separate after early childhood, but he would have seen her in the streets as she went with her mother to the market and also at the synagogue on the Sabbath.  It is likely that he would have seen her at weddings and other celebrations where perhaps he danced with her.  He would also have known about her from what his mother could have told him.  It may well have been his mother who first thought of Mary as a wife for her son.  In those days, marriages were often arranged by the parents, but the match would have had to be approved by the young man and young woman involved.  A period of a year followed the betrothal during which time preparations for the ceremony would have been made and also negotiations over family finances, such as about the dowry, would have been conducted.  It was during this period, between the betrothal and the wedding itself, that Mary told Joseph that she was with child by the Holy Spirit.  Joseph would have listened intently to her and he believed her.  Mary was more than mature for her age, she was the personification of integrity, and every word she spoke rang with truthfulness.  Further, her reputation for holiness was such that, as St. Jerome puts it, it would have been easier for Joseph to believe that she had conceived by the Holy Spirit than that she had committed adultery.

But because Joseph was a righteous man, he was faced with a terrible dilemma.  Just as God had told Moses to take off his shoes because the land around the burning bush was holy ground, so he considered that this conception by the Holy Spirit meant that she should swept away, that he was as a shoe inhibiting Mary’s holy foot from treading the holy ground of God’s will for her.  Yet he loved her and knew that she needed human assistance too.  And his stepping away from her in any sense might be interpreted in unpredictable and likely hostile ways by the people of the town.  The angel in his dream solves his dilemma.  It is almost as though Joseph himself were being put to the test as to what course of action he would take, but unwilling to do anything that might lead to Mary’s and her Baby’s harm and ever desirous of doing the will of God, he, by himself, could not describe what the divine will was.  

Confirming that the Son of Mary was conceived by the Holy Spirit and speaking of the Child’s destiny, the angel instructed Joseph to proceed with the wedding and lead Mary afterwards into his house where they would make a home together.  We ought to think of Mary and Joseph joyfully dancing together at their wedding feast, looking into one another’s eyes and sharing a heavenly secret that would change all of human history.  And when Joseph looked into her eyes, he also knew that he was looking into His.  

Joseph and Mary lived the rest of their lives together as pious Jewish parents, trusting in the will of God even when they did not know what that meant at the time.  Jesus attended synagogue with them, first sitting with his Mother, and then, after his bar mitzvah, with his father, and going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem with them.  They lived a quiet life for many years in their little town, with Jesus giving signs of his divinity only now and then, but always in unexpected and disconcerting ways.  The Lord’s unwillingness to marry when he came of the proper age may have been one of these ways.  The townspeople and especially his relatives may have resented this because it would have seemed to them that he was neglecting his responsibility to continue his father’s (as they would have imagined it) line, potentially setting up the violent rejection his town would issue him in the years to come.

Tradition and the inferences of the Gospels tell us that Joseph died before the Lord began his public ministry, in the presence of Mary and Jesus.  The Lord, as his reputed son, would have closed his eyelids.  He reigns now in glory in a great place of honor among the saints.  If we go to him to offer our prayers to the Lord, we shall surely hear a favorable reply.