Do not be afraid to take Mary into your home

Jer 23,5-8; Ps 71,2.12-13.18-19; Mt 1,18-24.
18 DECEMBER

When the Word of God enters history, it always meets with a concrete person, who is also a fruit of history, which may be of truth or falsity, of justice or injustice, of holiness or sin and of audacity or fear. We know that when the Word of the Lord entered the life of the Virgin Mary, this, because of her most high holiness, proclaimed herself the servant of the Lord, offering all her soul, her spirit, her body and every little part of herself for the Word to be fulfilled in Her. Now instead the Word enters the history of Joseph. Unlike the Virgin Mary, He was born with the original sin. Although he is just, faithful to the law and the Commandments, he carries in his spirit the legacy of Adam. It becomes difficult for him to enter in an instant the mystery, read it, decipher it, understand it and decide for its reception. If Joseph is a just man, he cannot live except justice. One cannot live what he is not. Being a righteous person, he thinks according to justice.

Today, at this moment, justice for Joseph is only one: leaving Mary, without causing her any harm. He on his way and She on hers. You cannot ask for more. Nor can we enter his thoughts. Scripture is silent and we must be silent. The decision is made, but it is not yet implemented. It is between the decision and the implementation that the Lord is inserted. His Angel comes in the dream and asks him not to be afraid to take Mary with him. The Child she is waiting comes from the Holy Spirit. It is for his work. Mary did not know any man. She was very holy before and is very holy now. She was a virgin before and is a virgin now. She is all of God. Not only that. Giuseppe will have to give the name to the Child. He will have to make him his real son and will have to give him the lineage of David. For this adoption Jesus will be the King of Israel, the promised Messiah and the true Anointed of the Lord. Joseph listens. He awakens from sleep. He obeys and takes Mary as his wife. From perfect justice we pass to immediate obedience, without even a single doubt or thought. Obedience is instantaneous.

Now this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found with child through the holy Spirit. Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly. Such was his intention when, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means “God is with us.” When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home.

Joseph is the model of the true Christian. Man’s first vocation is that of becoming a Christian. How do you become one? Not fearing to take Jesus with us. He will be generated in us by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit will make him our life, our heart, our thought and our will. This is the fundamental justice of essence, on which then the entire Christian edifice of grace, of the Word, of truth and of life can be built. Without this fundamental, primary justice, nothing might be built, constructed. The rock on which to raise our spiritual home is missing. Today we are not only deprived of this righteousness of essence, we want to free ourselves from it, we no longer want to lead, to call and attract to it. This is the sign of a fearful fall from faith and consequently also from justice. Today an angel of the Lord should come to every Christian and cry out to his ear: Do not be afraid to take Christ the Lord with you. It is the gift of the Father for your true salvation. Do not be afraid to show the world that Christ is your true justice. Know that without Him you will remain eternally in your flesh of sin and death. Joseph was a just man and immediately obeyed the Angel. May the Lord grant us also the grace of immediate obedience.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints, help us to obey God’s will with immediacy.