A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. The parents of Jesus used let's change that and read it from Saint Matthew. I like that for that. Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary. It was her of her.
That's the most important part of this reading. That Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary. It was of her that Jesus, was called the Messiah, was born. Now this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. When his mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they had come to live together, Mary was found with child through the power of the holy spirit.
Joseph didn't know that, however. Now Joseph, her husband, an upright man, unwilling to expose Mary 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.
When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the lord had directed him. And this is the gospel, the good news of the lord. Be to lord Jesus Christ. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Of course, volumes have been written about Saint Joseph, full fledged biographies.
Well, of course, you can't keep people from indulging in their imagination and writing fiction. What we know about Joseph is very scarce. Only a few sentences in the whole of the bible and in the new testament. Just a few sentences. And yet, they are tremendously significant.
Tremendous, it's First thing that strikes me, and I'm not going to dwell on it because I don't know anything about it really, it's his confidence in dreams. He surely took his dreams seriously, is all I can say, most seriously. Because remember, this matter of Mary being found pregnant before they came to live together as husband and wife, they had been espoused, and that espousal was equivalent to being married. And according to the law, Mary should be publicly exposed, and the death penalty was the normal thing. Now whether it was enforced or not, that's another question.
But the law was there, that legally, a woman espoused to a man who becomes pregnant is guilty of adultery. Now that was and Joseph, we are about the only thing we're told about Joseph in the way of a description is he was a just man. The Latin of it is justice. I don't know what the I guess the Greek has something to do with decay, but that means a person who has great loyalty and fidelity to the law. So the first thing about Joseph is that he had a great deal of confidence in dreams.
Because here's a situation that was we would call it traumatic, but that would be putting it extremely mild, that a man, a spouse to a a a supposedly a virgin, finds the virgin pregnant. And in a dream, we're told that he he is informed that that his wife, by his spouse his spouse's wife, is pregnant by the Holy Spirit, and he believes it and he acts upon it. That's the first The second aspect of Saint Joseph is one of obedience. The things that poor man was asked to do here, the baby's born, and those now there remember, they're up in the northern part of of of the of Palestine. And they he's told again in a dream to take the child and his mother and go over into Egypt.
Now there weren't any seven forty running around at that time. I have that on pretty good authority. Even the theologians agree to that. So he takes the child, which is a a young baby, the mother who has just delivered the baby, and the drapes he off to Egypt. Get your map out and look where they went, and most of it on foot, if not all of it on foot for him.
This is the astounding part about Saint Joseph, and these are facts, this is not, not that he was a man, a just man, who wanted to do God's will and did it. There's there's not a suggestion of hesitation. And he was asked to swallow he was asked to swallow not merely gnats, but indeed camels. And he did just that. He never seems to have hesitated to do god's will.
That's the one point I wanna make today, god's will. How often do we advert to I mean, explicitly advert to it and say, what is god's will for me here and now? I mean, here and now, right now. I've from this pulpit, I've said many times that in a career of almost fifty years in the priesthood, I've had a number of people come with problems. I have yet to have a person he's supposed to be Catholics, most of them, who have come and say, father, will you help me to know god's will?
I've got it's never happened. And yet, what are we called to do? All of us. Whatever else we have to do as followers of Jesus Christ, you can't escape that fundamental calling, your vocation. And what is your vocation?
You got it in baptism. Do God's will. Now people will say, well, I don't know God's will. That's very true. But what they generally mean is they don't know it as clearly as they like to know it.
It isn't as all embracing, as persuasive as they would like it to be. Because, again, referring to some considerable number of years of experience, for the most part, when the time comes to act, not not twenty four hours before, not a year before, When we pray the Lord's Prayer, we pray for our daily bread, not for tomorrow's and not for a bakery full. And so it is with God's will. People would like to see the road all the way into eternity, one beautiful illuminated boulevard. There's no such thing.
It's a road with many curves and a lot of ups and a lot of downs. And when you're down, you can't see much above the waves. All you can see is the wall of the wave. Some Sometimes you can scarcely see the sky. But when the time comes, it is my firm conviction on a lot of for a lot of good reasons that we know God's will, that God's will is evident that it appears it's there.
The difficulty is we don't want to do it. Now this is perfectly normal. This is one of the things that people are so grievously mistaken about, that they ought to be able to do God's will joyously. Well, let me tell you, there's plenty of times when you do God's will and you are very joyless. Let me tell you, when when CS Lewis fell down on his knees on the day that he became a believer in God, what was his reaction of joy singing Hosannas and Hallelujahs?
What does Lewis say? I was the most reluctant believer in. We turn away from sin, and we should be we should be glad and rejoice and praise the lord. Oh, sometimes it's not that way at all. We look back to Egypt.
It's perfectly normal. Don't be amazed at it. Doing God's will is not fun and games. Doing God's will is taking the child into Egypt. And so today on this feast of Saint Joseph, my patron saint, hope he doesn't do nothing like too embarrassing, I lay that before you.
If you can say anything about Joseph, it's the fact that he wanted to do God's will, and when it came to him clearly, he did it without hesitation. That doesn't mean he did it with a great deal of joy and enthusiasm and all of that nonsense. Of course, he may have done it like that, but it's very likely he didn't do anything of the sort. When he was asked to take a child his mother into Egypt, he must have been very much frightened. And many times on the journey, he probably said, why in the world am I doing this?
What's it all about? Why did can't I go back and stay in Bethlehem or go back to Nazareth? That's human nature. And so when we don't expect too much of God, just expect enough, and you'll have it. And the grace of God will be enough for you to do his will.
Never for a moment doubt. In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the spirit. Amen.