The Solemnity of St. Joseph, Wednesday, March 19, 2025

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.

Joseph’s family was originally from Bethlehem in Judah, and since his family was of David’s lineage his ancestors were likely officials in the Kingdom of Judah at the time Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians in the year 597 B.C.  As such, they would have been carried into exile in Babylon.  They would have returned to Judah after the Persian conquest of Babylon.  Some of Joseph’s ancestors moved to Galilee about a hundred years before the birth of Christ.  At that time few Jews lived there.  The land had been depopulated as a result of the Assyrian conquest in the 8th century B.C., and over the centuries had been slowly resettled by Gentiles from the north.  Many of Joseph’s neighbors may have been the descendants of pagan converts to Judaism.  

In today’s Gospel reading, the Evangelist tells us of how Joseph struggled to know what to do in the face of Mary’s pregnancy.  St. Jerome and the early Greek Scripture scholar Origen tell us that Joseph surely knew that Mary had conceived by the Holy Spirit and that Mary had revealed this to him.  It was his humility that made him hesitate to take her into his home as his wife.  As a “righteous man” he would have been looking forward to the coming of the Messiah, but the thought of his own unworthiness to be the husband of the Mother of the Messiah must have overwhelmed him: not only was the Child the Messiah, but the Son of God!  He was faced with a seemingly impossible dilemma: he was unworthy to be in the life of this Woman and her Child, and yet he was espoused to her and must take care of them.  His first thought was that he should “release her” or “separate himself from her”, better translations than “to divorce her quietly”.  He could reassure himself that since God had given her this Child, his own Son, God would take care of Mother and Son, and that he, Joseph, was not needed, and was certainly undeserving of being part of this mystery.

But God, in his wonderful providence, did will for Joseph to be an important part of this mystery.  He sent his angel, probably Gabriel, who had spoken to Mary, to tell him that he need not “be afraid” to take Mary into his home as his wife, for indeed “it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her”.  That is, the miraculous conception of the Child is given as the reason for why Joseph should not fear to take Mary into his home.  The angel was telling Joseph that God meant for him to take an intimate part in what was happening, despite his unworthiness.  Once Joseph understood this, he immediately resolved to do as he was told.  This determination ought to remind us of how immediately Mary consented to become the Mother of the Son of God the moment she understood what she was being asked.  The angel tells Joseph that he is to name the Child “Jesus”.  As a result, Joseph understands that he is to be considered his father, not merely his caretaker.  When the newborn infant was named by his or her father, the father was publicly claiming his paternity.  Joseph did this, naming the Child at the time of his circumcision, which must have taken place at his ancestral home, Bethlehem.  

The immediate carrying out of orders is not an easy thing to do.  A person requires considerable training to do this, whether as a soldier, an athlete, or a musician.  Joseph was able to rise from his sleep and immediately begin preparations to take Mary into his home because he had always been obedient to God in the past, following the law and rejecting temptation to sin.  Always thinking of God and his will for him, Joseph was the one man among all the men who had ever or would ever live who could have been the foster father of the Son of God.  We have him to pray to so that we might become more obedient to God’s will and his law, and so come into the inheritance promised by his foster Son, Jesus Christ.

As a side note, the angel’s words, “You are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins”, remind us that St. Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, as the Church Fathers tell us.  Only in Hebrew does this verse make sense: You are to name him Yeshua, for yasha his people from their sins.  Yasha means “he saved” or, in the historical present, “he saves”.  This verb is the root for the Hebrew name we know in English as “Jesus”.  We see this only in Hebrew.