St Joseph, model of hope
Journeying on our life of faith we are confronted by trials, hardships, sufferings. But these trials can be an aid and indeed should be, to enable us to grow in faith. We ought to see them as gifts from our Merciful God. We much prefer consolations than to embrace the Cross. St Teresa of Avila prayed ‘Do Thou prove us, Lord, who knowest the truth, so that we may learn to know ourselves.’ St Joseph we are told was a ‘just man’. His trust in the Providence of God shows us he was a man of hope. A hope-filled man is also humble. Despite the trials he endured, he remained steadfast in hope. He knew his own heart in the Light of God. He was never lacking in liberty of spirit.
The priest Zechariah had an apparition from the Angel Gabriel who brought him the good news that he and his wife, Elizabeth, would have a son. They are both elderly and Elizabeth has passed the childbearing age. Zechariah doubts, despite the fact that this is what he had been praying for. Gabriel told him that the Lord had heard his prayers. His hope is weak. The Angel tells him that his son will go forward in the power of the great prophet Elijah. Zechariah asks for a sign as a proof. And because of his lack of faith, he is struck dumb for the period until the child is born. St Joseph is also entrusted with a message from God, which is even more astonishing than that given to Zechariah. But Joseph does not receive this from an angelic apparition. Instead, he has a dream. He is told not to be afraid to take Mary, to whom he is betrothed, that the child in her womb is conceived of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and he is to name him ‘Jesus’, meaning ‘Saviour’, because he will save His people from their sins. Like the righteous and devout Simeon, he too would have been looking forward to the consolation of Israel, the coming of the ‘Lord’s Christ’, the long-awaited Messiah. He would have known the prophecy of Isaiah: ‘Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel, a name meaning ‘God with us’. The Angel had said He would save ‘His’ people, indicating a King, the Messiah-King. But Joseph would not have been expecting to hear that the Messiah would be conceived of the Holy Spirit, pointing to the Divine nature of the Son. Joseph is humble. God knows his heart. This most astonishing news coming merely through a dream rather than an actual angelic visitation indicates that no discussion or questioning is anticipated. Joseph is also magnanimous. He shows no fear or doubt. When he awoke, he simply went and did what the angel of the Lord commanded him in his dream. Joseph gives his ‘fiat’ not by a word, but by his action. Similarly, when Joseph is warned by an angel in a dream to take his family to Egypt because Herod was seeking to kill the child, he does not doubt. He arose and did what was commanded of him.
St Joseph was a man of hope. The theological virtue of hope is a gift of Divine Grace and is substantial in the person. It is directed to a supernatural happiness in God. And we know of this through Divine Revelation. There is also a natural hope, which can even be directed to evil. But it is not substantial. It becomes supernatural when it is oriented to the Good, to eternal life, through the gift of God’s Grace. Unlike natural hope, supernatural hope is substantially life transforming in a way that never ends. When we truly know Heaven is our goal, we orient our heart and soul to death and eternal life. All the runners in a race compete for a ‘perishable wreath’, but we for an imperishable one. We can all win this prize. Faith, hope and charity feed into one another. When our hope weakens, we can strengthen it through acts of charity.
We are all beings in a state of journeying. This disposes us to a natural hope. We are in a state of the ‘not yet’. And this state is ordered to two virtues: humility and magnanimity. Our impulse is toward magnanimity. This is an aspiration of our spirit to do ‘great things’. Humility tempers this impulse like a restraining wall. Magnanimity, says St Thomas, makes the virtuous soul tend to the perfection of virtue. These two virtues tend towards balancing one another. When they are in harmony the soul can achieve great things for God in seeking always to do His Will. This is what we see in the lives of the saints. Next to the Blessed Virgin Mary, St Joseph is the greatest of saints. In the eyes of the world around him, he was an ordinary man, a carpenter, nothing special about him. We know of his greatness because of the greatness of the responsibility God entrusted to his care, to be the father of the Holy Family, to be the guardian of His Divine Son and protector of His Mother. It was certainly a magnanimous act for him to take Mary as his wife and respect her virginity as her most chaste spouse. In his humility he willingly gave his ‘yes’ to God’s plan made known to him only in a dream. Pope St Pius IX made him patron of the Universal Church, as Mary is its mother, our mother. We beseech their intercession that as we journey in hope we too may listen to the Voice of God and seek always to do His Will. Do something beautiful for God, even in our little everyday actions, with great love.