4th Sunday of Advent (Year A) - 18 December
18th December 2022
4th Sunday of Advent (Year A) - 18 December
“Enjoy in peace the joy God is giving you.” - St Thérèse of Lisieux
A reflection on today's Gospel by the Venerable Archbishop Fulton J Sheen:
"The first reason for the espousal [of Mary and Joseph] was that it kept the Blessed Mother covered with honour until the time came for her to reveal the Virgin Birth. We do not know exactly when she revealed the fact, but it is likely that it was done shortly after the Resurrection. There was no point in talking about the Virgin Birth until Our Lord had given the final proof of His Divinity. In any case, there were only a few who really knew it: the mother herself, St Joseph, Elizabeth, her cousin, and, of course, Our Blessed Lord. So far as public appearances went, it was thought that Our Blessed Lord was the son of Joseph. Thus the reputation of the Blessed Mother was conserved; if Mary had become a Mother without a spouse, it would have exposed the mystery of Christ's birth to ridicule, and would have become a scandal to the weak.
"A second reason for the marriage was that Joseph could bear witness to the purity of Mary. This involved, both for Mary and for Joseph, the greatest sorrow this side of Calvary. Every privilege of grace has to be paid for, and so Mary and Joseph had to pay for theirs. Mary did not tell Joseph that she was conceived by the Spirit of Love, because the Angel did not bid her do so. The Blessed Mother once revealed to a Saint: ‘Outside of Golgotha, I never suffered such intense agony as in those days when, despite myself, I brought worry to Joseph, who was so just.’ The sorrow of Joseph came from the inexplicable. On the one hand, he knew that Mary had taken the vow of virginity, as he had done. It seemed impossible to believe her guilty, because of her goodness. But, on the other hand, because of her condition, how could he believe otherwise? Joseph suffered then what the mystics have called ‘the dark night of the soul.’ Mary had to pay for her honour, particularly at the end of her life, but Joseph had to pay for his at the beginning. Because Joseph had kept his vow, he was naturally surprised when he heard that Mary was with child. The surprise that Joseph felt was like that of Mary at the Annunciation: ‘How shall this be, seeing I know not man?’ Mary wanted then to know how she could be both a virgin and a mother; Joseph wanted to know how he could be a virgin and a father. It took an Angel to reassure them both that God had found a way. No human knowledge of science can explain such a thing. Only those who listen to angels' voices can pierce that mystery. As Joseph had a mind to put Mary away secretly, the Gospel lifts the veil of the mystery to him: ‘But hardly had the thought come to his mind, when an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take thy wife Mary to thyself, for it is by the power of the Holy Ghost that she has conceived this child; and she will bear a son, whom thou shalt call Jesus, for he is to save his people from their sins”.’ (Matt 1:20, 21)
"Joseph's worries were overcome by a revelation of the dignity of Christ's Virgin Birth and of the nature of His mission namely, to save us from our sins. The very words of the angel: ‘Do not be afraid to take thy wife Mary to thyself’ seem to support the view that Joseph already believed that a miracle had taken place in Mary and that that was why he ‘feared’ to bring her into his own house. It is unlikely that any man told of a Virgin Birth would ever have credited it if there had not already been in his heart a belief in the Messiah, Christ, Who was to come. Joseph knew that the Messiah would be born of the family of David, and he himself was of that family. He also knew of the prophecies concerning the Child, even the one of Isaiah that He would be born of a Virgin. If Joseph had not already been described as a just man, the message of the angel and the honour that was to come to Mary would have been enough to have inspired great purity in him. For if a modern father were told that one day his son would be President of the United States, it would inspire a changed attitude toward his wife, the mother of the child. In like manner, all anxiety and anguish now leave Joseph, as his soul is filled with reverence and awe for the love of Mary's secret.
"Mary and Joseph brought to their espousals not only their vows of virginity, but also two hearts with greater torrents of love than had ever before coursed through human breasts. No husband and wife ever loved one another so much as Joseph and Mary. Their marriage was not like that of others, because the right to the body was surrendered; in normal marriages, unity in the flesh is the symbol of its consummation, and the ecstasy which accompanies a consummation is only a foretaste of the joy that comes to the soul when it attains union with God through grace. If there is satiety and fed-up-ness in marriage, it is because it falls short of what it was meant to reveal, or because the inner Divine Mystery was not seen in the act. But in the case of Mary and Joseph, there was no need of the symbol of the unity of flesh, since they already possessed the Divinity. Why pursue the shadow when they had the substance? Mary and Joseph needed no consummation in the flesh for, in the beautiful language of Leo XIII: 'The consummation of their love was in Jesus.' Why bother with the flickering candles of the flesh, when the Light of the World is their love? Truly He is Jesu, voluptas cordium. When He is the sweet voluptuousness of hearts, there is not even a thought of the flesh. As husband and wife standing over the cradle of their newborn life forget, for the moment, the need of one another, so Mary and Joseph, in their possession of God in their family, hardly knew that they had bodies. Love usually makes husband and wife one; in the case of Mary and Joseph, it was not their combined loves but Jesus Who made them one. No deeper love ever beat under the roof of the world since the beginning, nor will it ever beat, even unto the end. They did not go to God through love of one another; rather, because they went first to God, they had a deep and pure love one for another."
(The World’s First Love, Mary, Mother of God)
An Advent Prayer
God of hope, who brought love into this world, be the love that dwells between us. God of hope, who brought peace into this world, be the peace that dwells between us. God of hope, who brought joy into this world, be the joy that dwells between us. God of hope, the rock we stand upon, be the centre, the focus of our lives always and particularly this Advent time. Through Him who is our hope, our joy, our love, our peace in union with the Holy Spirit, one God forever. Amen. 💖🙏💐