Patrick Comerford
Lent began two weeks ago on Ash Wednesday (5 March 2025), and this week began with the Second Sunday in Lent (Lent II). Today, the Calendar of the Church celebrates Saint Joseph of Nazareth.
Later this evening, I hope to join the choir rehearsals in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, reading today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Matthew 1: 18-25 (NRSVA):
18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ 22 All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
23 ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel’,
which means, ‘God is with us.’ 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.
Today’s Reflection:
Saint Joseph often goes unnoticed in Ireland as people return work after the Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations and holiday weekend halfway through Lent.
We have very little information about Saint Joseph in the Gospels. He figures in the two Gospels with infancy narratives, Saint Matthew and Saint Luke, but even in those accounts, he never speaks. But he responds to God’s call – he is a man of action rather than words, a doer rather than a sayer.
He is described as a τέκτων (tekton), a word traditionally translated as ‘carpenter’, although the Greek word refers to someone who works in wood, iron or stone, including builders. Saint Joseph’s specific association with woodworking is a theme in Early Christian writings, and Justin Martyr, who died ca 165, wrote that Jesus made yokes and ploughs.
On the other hand, Geza Vermes says the terms ‘carpenter’ and ‘son of a carpenter’ are used in the Talmud for a very learned man, and he suggests that a description of Saint Joseph as naggar (‘a carpenter’) could indicate that he was considered wise and highly literate in the Torah.
Until about the 17th century, Saint Joseph is often depicted in art as a man of advanced years, with grey hair, usually bearded and balding, and occasionally frail. He is presented as a comparatively marginal figure alongside Mary and Jesus, often in the background except, perhaps, when he was leading them on the flight into Egypt. More recently, he has been portrayed as a younger or even youthful man, going about his work as a carpenter, or taking part in the daily life of his family.
This later emphasis is seen in ‘Christ in the House of His Parents’ (1849–1850), a painting by the Pre-Raphaelite artist, Sir John Everett Millais (1829-1896), depicting the Holy Family in Saint Joseph’s carpentry workshop. The painting, now in the Tate Britain in London, was controversial when it was first exhibited, prompting many negative reviews, most notably one by Charles Dickens, who accused Millais of portraying Mary as an alcoholic who looks ‘so hideous in her ugliness that … she would stand out from the rest of the company as a Monster, in the vilest cabaret in France, or the lowest gin-shop in England.’
Critics also objected to the portrayal of Christ, one complaining that it was ‘painful’ to see ‘the youthful Saviour’ depicted as ‘a red-headed Jew boy.’ Dickens described him as a ‘wry-necked boy in a nightgown who seems to have received a poke playing in an adjacent gutter.’ Other critics suggested that the characters displayed signs of rickets and other disease associated with slum conditions.
But this painting brought attention to the previously obscure Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, influencd many artists, was replicated in stained-glass windows throughout these islands, and was a major contributor to the debate about Realism in the arts.
Today’s Gospel reading reminds us that Saint Joseph says ‘Yes’, even if he says it silently. He has no scripted lines, he has no dramatic parts or roles; indeed, he is mute. But he is obedient. And, like Joseph, his namesake in the Old Testament, he too is the dreamer of dreams and the doer of deeds.
Saint Joseph and the Virgin Mary are engaged, but the marriage contract has not yet been signed, she has not yet entered into his house.
If the Mosaic law had been fully observed by Joseph, Mary could have faced ‘public disgrace,’ even been stoned to death.
Joseph is righteous and observes the Law. But he is also compassionate and plans to send her away quietly, without public shame.
The angel of the Lord tells Joseph of his role: through him, God’s promises will be fulfilled in the child to be born. And Joseph names the child Jesus.
The fear of sneers, of judgmental remarks and wagging fingers, must have been running through Joseph’s mind like a nightmare. Yet the angel in Joseph’s dream promises: ‘He will save his people from their sins.’
It is not a promise of immediate reward. Saint Joseph is not offered the promise that if he behaves like this he is going to earn some Brownie points towards the forgiveness of his own sins; that God will see him as a nice guy; or even that if he lives long enough, this child may grow up, be apprenticed to him, take over the family business, and act as a future pension plan.
Instead, the promised pay-off is for others as yet unknown. The forgiveness here is spoken of in apocalyptic terms. It is more than the self-acceptance offered in psychotherapy. Instead, it is the declaration of a new future. To be forgiven is to receive a future. Forgiveness breaks the simple link between cause and effect, action and reaction, failure and disaster, rebellion and recrimination.
This hope of all the ages, the beginning of the end of all the old tyrannies, the restoration of everything that is and will be, was always meant to take place in a virgin’s womb, in the manger, on the cross.
This is Lent – a a time of expectation, repentance and forgiveness. It is a time of preparation, anticipation and hope. It is a time for dreaming dreams, and putting behind us all our nightmares. The dream in this Gospel reading is the dream of Saint Joseph, not the Virgin Mary’s dream.
The Very Revd Samuel G Candler, Dean of Saint Philip’s Episcopal Cathedral in Atlanta, Georgia, suggested in a sermon many years ago: ‘We need sleep because we need to dream.’
Saint Joseph dreamed something wonderful. God would enter the world; God would be born to his new, young wife, Mary. But to believe this, Saint Joseph had to trust not only his dream, but to trust Mary, to trust the future child, to trust God.
Do you love the people you trust and trust the people you love?
To trust the Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph must have truly loved her. But trust in this predicament must have gone beyond trust. Joseph must have truly glimpsed what it is to trust God, to have hope in God, to love God, to have faith in God.
Saint Joseph dreams a dream not of his own salvation, but of the salvation of the world.
Do you trust that God is working through the people you love? Do you trust that God is working through people you find it difficult not to love but merely to like … working through God’s people for their salvation?
Saint Joseph has no speaking part; he just has a walk-on part in the Gospel story. But his actions, his obedience to God’s call, speak louder than words.
Yes, God appears over and over again, to men, women, to ‘all sorts and conditions of people.’
But do we trust them?
Can you have faith in someone else?
Can you believe their dreams?
Can you believe the dreams of those you love?
And dream their dreams too?
As Dean Candler urged in his sermon: ‘Believe in the dreams of the person you love.’
Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 19 March 2025, Saint Joseph):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Truth: The Path to Reconciliation’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 19 March 2025, Saint Joseph) invites us to pray:
Heavenly Father, whose Son grew in wisdom and stature in the home of Joseph the carpenter of Nazareth and on the wood of the cross perfected the work of the world’s salvation: help us, strengthened by this sacrament of his passion, to count the wisdom of the world as foolishness, and to walk with him in simplicity and trust; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The Collect:
God our Father,
who from the family of your servant David
raised up Joseph the carpenter
to be the guardian of your incarnate Son
and husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary:
give us grace to follow him
in faithful obedience to your commands;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer:
Heavenly Father,
whose Son grew in wisdom and stature in the home of Joseph the carpenter of Nazareth
and on the wood of the cross
perfected the work of the world’s salvation:
help us, strengthened by this sacrament of his passion,
to count the wisdom of the world as foolishness,
and to walk with him in simplicity and trust;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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