4th Sunday of Advent, Year C, 18th Dec 202

We ask in this Eucharist, for the grace and Strength to willingly give up our own projects to make room for God's will in our lives. Happy Sunday! 

DOCTRINE AND FAITH
(Isaiah 7,10-14; Psalm 23 (24); Romans 1,1-7; Matthew 1,18-24, 4th Sunday of Advent, Year C, 18th Dec 2022)

With this Fourth Sunday of Advent, we approach the celebration of Christmas, the expectation becomes more intense, and our gaze turns away from John the Baptist (a central figure in the last two Sundays) to concentrate on Emmanuel, the God with us, prophesied to Ahaz and now, to Joseph. The liturgy makes us dwell on the one who is to come, but from a particular perspective, that of Joseph.

Unlike Ahaz, unable to interpret the signs of God in the history of salvation, Joseph is the righteous man (Matt 1,19), willing to assume God's dream in his own life. His faith enlightens us, so that we may also celebrate, as just men and women, the ministry of God-with-us. If Luke tells of Mary's vocation, in Matthew we encounter the vocation of Joseph, who hears the word of God in a dream. This is a typical element of his figure in the first Gospel: the main events of his life take place while he sleeps. Joseph sleeps even in the most dramatic circumstances. Should it be seen as indifference towards the two people who have been entrusted to him, Jesus and Mary? Not, really!  But rather as an attitude of total and absolute trust in the One who entrusted them to him. There is a harmful sleep that is equivalent to escape, escape into the realm of dreams, diversion out of reality. And there is a good sleep, the sleep of the man who, despite having headaches, entrusts it to God before falling asleep. St. Joseph gives us an admirable example of quiet and silent trust and fidelity. And it is also the lesson of the Gospel: A man scatters seeds on the land, while he sleeps or stays awake, by night or by day, the seed sprouts and grows; how, it grows, he himself does not know" (Mark 4,27). To fully understand Joseph's attitude, we must pay attention to another verb that characterizes him: to consider. In fact, Matthew writes: As he was considering these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream (Matt 1,20). The word of God reaches him in a dream, but while he is considering these things. The expression is paradoxical: on the one hand Joseph reasons, questions himself, research; on the other he sleeps and dreams. For Matthew, these dynamics, which would seem to be mutually exclusive, must be kept together. It is necessary to consider and dream at the same time; it is necessary to search with all one's human faculties and at the same time remain open to welcoming a word that surprises us from above. What does Joseph consider, so as to welcome the angel of God? According to the most usual interpretation, he would doubt Mary but, being just, he does not want to deliver her to the rigorous procedure of the Mosaic Law, exposing her to public infamy. He, therefore, decides to repudiate her in secret (Matt 1,19). At this point the angelic vision intervenes to reassure him: The child who is begotten in her is of the Holy Spirit (Matt 1,20). In the patristic tradition, we encounter a different interpretation. Joseph does not doubt Mary, but in her sincere faith, he sees that God is doing something extraordinary in her. He is therefore afraid to take her with him, sensing that a project of salvation is being realized that is far superior to the marriage plan that he was conceiving.

 Thus, we find in Joseph an attitude similar to that of Mary, described to us by Luke: he is willing to give up his own project to make room for God's promise. The fear that characterizes him - Do not be afraid, the angel tells him - it is not to be understood as fear, but as the typical fear of God of the biblical tradition: Joseph has the sense of God and the perception of his action in the history of men; he, therefore, steps aside to leave the field open for him. Here is the justice that Joseph lives, and which is found in the Scriptures: never mere correctness in the face of the Law of Moses or the norms of human coexistence, but research, with all one's strength, of God's will to fulfill it in one's existence. Joseph doesn't want to be in God's way, before whom he can only feel like a poor man. He wants to step aside in the face of a mystery that he can't understand because it's bigger than him, but towards which he has total trust.

 Like a poor man, he entrusts himself to God's initiative, letting him work even at the cost of giving up his own project or conforming his own desire to God’s. The angelic vision, therefore, does not have the purpose of reassuring him of Mary's moral honesty, but of announcing to him that God has a mission for him too: to give the name to the virgin's Son and, with the name, legal paternity, thus inserting him in the lineage Davidic and in the vital current of the hope of Israel. Joseph accepts God's dream and welcomes Mary with him: He took his wife with him (Matt 1,24). And it's nice to imagine that Mary and Joseph understood God's plan when, in the same house, they told each other their experience of faith. An angel speaks to Joseph, but then Joseph becomes an angel for the faith of Mary, an angel for the faith of Joseph. Our experience is similar: God speaks to us personally, but only in the Church. By becoming one another's angels through the faith of the other, we better understand his word and support each other it he path of justice and fidelity. + John I. Okoye