RETREAT IN LENT 2021
Day 31,
Friday, 19 March
Joseph, the man of faith
Today we take a break on our Lent journey to celebrate St
Joseph, the spouse of Mary and the one who adopted Jesus as his son. ‘Your
father and I have been searching for you’ (Luke 2:48). His namesake in the book
of Genesis (chap. 37) was called ‘the man of dreams’ by his brothers and was
the one who saved them from death in Egypt. St Joseph was also a man of dreams
and also saved Jesus through their stay in Egypt.
The central insight of his life came in a dream, ‘Joseph, son
of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because she has
conceived her child through the Holy Spirit’ (Matt 1:18-25). Only a
person blessed with strong faith could accept such a message and build his
whole life on it. Abraham did it, Mary did it and now Joseph does it.
We have a second reading today enlarging this picture. 2
Samuel 7:4-16 speaks of a ‘house’ meaning a family, a people, built on this
foundation of faith, that will be established ‘for ever’. Finally, we have a
third reading, from Romans 4:13-22, emphasising that this whole story
began with the faith of Abraham. We have layer upon layer of faith culminating
in this story of the incarnation: God becomes a human being and ‘dwells among
us.’
Perhaps it is a moment to stand back and think about faith.
What is it? Can we imagine Joseph heading off with Mary and the child to Egypt?
Did they know what they were going to? Would they be welcomed? Find work?
Shelter? Food? All Joseph had was his belief that if this is what he was called
to do, God would provide, a saying that reminds us of Abraham’s words to Isaac
(Genesis 22:8). We can look at our own situation. How often we worry! We have
to struggle, as Joseph did, but deep down we pray to learn to trust.
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