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III. A JUST MAN - A HUSBAND
17. In the course of that pilgrimage of faith
which was his life, Joseph, like Mary, remained faithful to God's
call until the end. While Mary's life was the bringing to fullness
of that fiat first spoken at the Annunciation, at the
moment of Joseph's own "annunciation" he said nothing;
instead he simply "did as the angel of the Lord commanded
him" (Mt 1:24). And this first "doing" became
the beginning of "Joseph's way." The Gospels do not
record any word ever spoken by Joseph along that way. But the
silence of Joseph has its own special eloquence, for thanks
to that silence we can understand the truth of the Gospel's judgement
that he was "a just man" (Mt 1:19).
One must come to understand this truth, for
it contains one of the most important testimonies concerning
man and his vocation. Through many generations the Church has
read this testimony with ever greater attention and with deeper
understanding, drawing, as it were, "what is new and what
is old" (Mt 13:52) from the storehouse of the noble
figure of Joseph.
18. Above all, the "just" man of
Nazareth possesses the clear characteristics of a husband. Luke
refers to Mary as "a virgin betrothed to a man whose name
was Joseph" (Lk 1:27). Even before the "mystery
hidden for ages" (Eph 3:9) began to be fulfilled, the
Gospels set before us the image of husband and wife. According
to Jewish custom, marriage took place in two stages: first, the
legal, or true marriage was celebrated, and then, only after a
certain period of time, the husband brought the wife into his own
house. Thus, before he lived with Mary, Joseph was already her "husband." Mary,
however, preserved her deep desire to give herself exclusively
to God. One may well ask how this desire of Mary's could be
reconciled with a "wedding." The answer can only come
from the saving events as they unfold, from the special action
of God himself. From the moment of the Annunciation, Mary knew
that she was to fulfil her virginal desire to give herself
exclusively to God by becoming the Mother of God's Son. Becoming
a Mother by the power of the Holy Spirit was the form taken by
her gift of self: a form which God himself expected of the Virgin
Mary, who was "betrothed" to Joseph. Mary uttered her fiat.
The fact that Mary was "betrothed" to
Joseph was part of the very plan of God. This is pointed
out by Luke and especially by Matthew. The words spoken to Joseph
are very significant: "Do not fear to take Mary your wife,
for that which has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit" (Mt 1:20).
These words explain the mystery of Joseph's wife: In her motherhood
Mary is a virgin. In her, "the Son of the Most High" assumed
a human body and became "the Son of Man."
Addressing Joseph through the words
of the Angel, God speaks to him as the husband of the Virgin
of Nazareth. What took place in her through the power of the
Holy Spirit also confirmed in a special way the marriage bond which
already existed between Joseph and Mary. God's messenger was clear
in what he said to Joseph: "Do not fear to take Mary your
wife into your home." Hence, what had taken place earlier,
namely, Joseph's marriage to Mary, happened in accord with God's
will and was meant to endure. In her divine motherhood Mary had
to continue to live as "a virgin, the wife of her husband" (cf. Lk 1:27).
19. In the words of the "annunciation" by
night, Joseph not only heard the divine truth concerning his wife's
indescribable vocation; he also heard once again the truth about
his own vocation. This "just" man, who, in the spirit
of the noblest traditions of the Chosen People, loved the Virgin
of Nazareth and was bound to her by a husband's love, was once
again called by God to this love.
"Joseph did as the angel of the Lord
commanded him; he took his wife" into his home (Mt 1:24);
what was conceived in Mary was "of the Holy Spirit." From
expressions such as these are we not to suppose that his love
as a man was also given new birth by the Holy Spirit? Are we
not to think that the love of God which has been poured forth into
the human heart through the Holy Spirit (cf. Rom 5:5), molds
every human love into perfection? This love of God also molds--in
a completely unique way--the love of husband and wife, deepening
within it everything that bespeaks an exclusive gift of self, a
covenant between persons, and an authentic communion according
to the model of the Blessed Trinity.
"Joseph... took his wife; but he knew
her not, until she had borne a son" (Mt 1:24-25).
These words indicate another kind of closeness in marriage. The
deep spiritual closeness arising from marital union and the interpersonal
contact between man and woman have their definitive origin in
the Spirit, the Giver of Life (cf. Jn 6:63). Joseph,
in obedience to the Spirit, found in the Spirit the source of
love, the conjugal love which he experienced as a man. And
this love proved to be greater than this "just man" could
ever have expected within the limits of his human heart.
20. In the Liturgy, Mary is celebrated as "united
to Joseph, the just man, by a bond of marital and virginal love." There
are really two kinds of love here, both of which together represent
the mystery of the Church--virgin and spouse--as symbolized in
the marriage of Mary and Joseph. "Virginity or celibacy for
the sake of the Kingdom of God not only does not contradict the
dignity of marriage but presupposes and confirms it. Marriage and
virginity are two ways of expressing and living the one mystery
of the Covenant of God with his people," the Covenant which
is a communion of love between God and human beings.
Through his complete self-sacrifice, Joseph
expressed his generous love for the Mother of God, and gave her
a husband's "gift of self." Even though he decided to
draw back so as not to interfere in the plan of God which was coming
to pass in Mary, Joseph obeyed the explicit command of the angel
and took Mary into his home, while respecting the fact that she
belonged exclusively to God.
On the other hand, it was from his marriage
to Mary that Joseph derived his singular dignity and his rights
in regard to Jesus. "It is certain that the dignity of the
Mother of God is so exalted that nothing could be more sublime;
yet because Mary was united to Joseph by the bond of marriage,
there can be no doubt but that Joseph approached as no other
person ever could that eminent dignity whereby the Mother of
God towers above all creatures. Since marriage is the highest degree
of association and friendship, involving by its very nature a communion
of goods, it follows that God, by giving Joseph to the Virgin,
did not give him to her only as a companion for life, a witness
of her virginity and protector of her honor: he also gave Joseph
to Mary in order that he might share, through the marriage
pact, in her own sublime greatness."
21. This bond of charity was the core of
the Holy Family's life, first in the poverty of Bethlehem,
then in their exile in Egypt, and later in the house of Nazareth.
The Church deeply venerates this Family, and proposes it as the
model of all families. Inserted directly in the mystery of the
Incarnation, the Family of Nazareth has its own special mystery.
And in this mystery of the Incarnation, one finds a true fatherhood: the
human form of the family of the Son of God, a true human
family, formed by the divine mystery. In this family, Joseph
is the father: his fatherhood is not one that derives from
begetting offspring; but neither is it an "apparent" or
merely "substitute" fatherhood. Rather it is one that fully
shares in authentic human fatherhood and the mission of a
father in the family. This is a consequence of the hypostatic
union: humanity taken up into the unity of the Divine Person
of the Word-Son, Jesus Christ. Together with human nature, all
that is human, and especially the family--as the first dimension
of man's existence in the world--is also taken up in Christ.
Within this context, Joseph's human fatherhood was also "taken
up" in the mystery of Christ's Incarnation.
On the basis of this principle, the words
which Mary spoke to the twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple take
on their full significance: "Your father and I... have
been looking for you." This is no conventional phrase: Mary's
words to Jesus show the complete reality of the Incarnation present
in the mystery of the Family of Nazareth. From the beginning, Joseph
accepted with the "obedience of faith" his human
fatherhood over Jesus. And thus, following the light of the Holy
Spirit who gives himself to human beings through faith, he certainly
came to discover ever more fully the indescribable gift that was
his human fatherhood.
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