19/03/2025

St Joseph husband of Mary 

In the first reading, Nathan reveals IAMIAM's promise to David. God is speaking directly to the Jews.

St Paul, who had been chosen to encounter the Resurrection, writes to the newly converted in Rome. He relates his Resurrection Faith to the Old Testament. When faced with the reports of personal encounters with the Resurrection by the Apostles and Evangelists, the newly converted Jews,  had faced an almost insurmountable difficulty in having to completely renew the foundations on which all aspects of their lives were based. Each one of the converted had made a free choice for Jesus.

Approximately 33 years before the Resurrection an individual Jew, St Joseph had had to face what was for him the very personal challenge of  Mary's pregnancy. He had no way of knowing how to deal with this event. He was however, a good man, and decided in his human freedom not to quarrel with Mary and her family. God rewarded and supported his free choice with direct revelation.

The Incarnation was first revealed not to the learned and the clever but directly to Mary who was asked by IAMIAM to personally cooperate in the work of salvation. He thus reveals himself to be the Trinity of Supreme Being, IAMIAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT and at the same time reveals the possibilities for humanity by his trust that the teenager, Mary, can use her freedom to accept His plan for us all.

We have no way of knowing how Jesus, Mary and Joseph lived as the "Holy Family". They had neighbours, they had the same existence as their friends and family. They lived as righteous Jews but in their midst was the Holy One of God, Jesus Son of God and Son of Mary and today's Solemnity celebrates the faith of Joseph the guardian, the human "father", of Our Lord in the first years of his life as True Man on earth.