that was about to end in divorce may be saved by God through a friend’s advice. A woman’s alcoholism may provide the Holy One the occasion to draw her closer to himself. We cannot name all the ways God saves his people, but we can declare that the LORD keeps his promise.
Meditation: In what unexplained way has God worked in or through your life to save you or another person?
Prayer: Almighty Father, you raised up Joseph, a righteous man, to be the husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the foster father of your Son, Jesus Christ. Grant us the grace to see your saving work in our lives that we may praise your goodness. We ask this through the same Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.
Righteousness
Romans 4:13, 16–18, 22
Scripture: “. . . [T]he promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith” (Rom 4:13).
Reflection: “Righteousness” is a very important biblical word, especially for Paul. Righteousness defines a state of being in a healthy relationship with God. In his letter to the Romans, Paul argues that Abraham’s trust of God was a response to God’s offer of a relationship with him. In accepting the free gift, God declares Abraham righteous apart from the Torah, which had not yet been given to Moses. This enables Paul to conclude that anyone who accepts God’s offer of grace with an appropriate response is righteous.
This argument is important for Paul, because he wants to include the Gentiles—non-Jews—among those to whom God has offered righteousness through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Jews and Gentiles who accept God’s grace and respond through faith that God raised Jesus from the dead are righteous. God has invited them into a healthy relationship with him, and they have responded.
Paul is declaring that God’s promise to Abraham was not the result of any works that Abraham did; in other words, Abraham did not earn righteousness. Righteousness was a gift offered to him by God. If righteousness can be earned, then there is no reason for faith, trust in God’s reliability. In Pauline understanding, Jesus is the model of trust. He was handed over to death and raised by God. Anyone who believes in the God who raised Jesus from the dead is declared righteous by God.
In the context of this solemnity, the pericope from Paul’s letter to the Romans is chosen to highlight the righteousness of St. Joseph. According to Matthew’s Gospel, Joseph was “a righteous man” (1:19). He did not understand Mary’s pregnancy, but after divine intervention, placed his trust in the words of the angel of the Lord. According to the Torah, he should have divorced her— and he would have been declared righteous by works—but following the angel’s directive, he took her as his wife, trusting in God’s reliability. Thus, like Abraham before him, Joseph is declared righteous by faith.
In a consumer culture, righteousness easily becomes a commodity to be earned or bought. For many people, going to church is like making a deposit in the bank. Sinning is like taking out some of the funds in one’s heavenly savings account. In effect, this is salvation by works. No trust in God is required, since each person has his or her personal account.
Paul argues that righteousness is a gift offered by God to us. Abraham is the first person to have trusted God’s reliability. Joseph is another. God makes the first move, and we respond in faith to God’s offer of grace. God declares us righteous, to be in a healthy relationship with him. With each response we make, more grace—God’s own life—is given to us, hopefully, evoking another response. According to Paul, this is how God draws us into righteousness.
Meditation: What was your first response to God’s grace? Can you trace your growth in trust of God as you have kept responding to grace through faith?
Prayer: Father, you declared your servants Abraham and Joseph righteous through faith. Make us ever more aware of your daily offers of grace that we may grow in deeper trust of you, who raised Jesus Christ, your Son, from the dead. He lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit as one God, forever and ever. Amen.
Dreamer
(1) Matthew 1:16, 18–21, 24a
Scripture: “. . . Jacob [was] the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah” (Matthew 1:16).
Reflection: Most biblical scholars agree that Matthew’s Joseph character is modeled on the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) Joseph. The Joseph of Genesis has a father named Jacob; the Joseph of Matthew’s Gospel is the son of Jacob. The Joseph of Genesis is the recipient of divine direction through dreams; the Joseph of Matthew’s Gospel receives divine direction through the appearance of an angel of the Lord in his dreams. The Joseph of Genesis goes to Egypt; the Joseph of Matthew’s Gospel takes Mary and Jesus to Egypt.
A dreamer comes to understand that he or she is part of something that is bigger than he or she. In the case of Joseph from Genesis, he comes to understand that his dreams got him to Egypt in order to save the world from famine. In the case of Joseph from Matthew’s Gospel, he comes to understand that his dreams are a part of God’s plan both to save Jesus and to save the world.
What we might not understand is that God works through our dreams to accomplish his will. A young man may marry the girl of his dreams, thinking that they are his dreams; later he discovers that his dreams were God’s dreams, the Holy One’s way of bringing children into the world, of fulfilling a mission of some kind, of being a living witness to the divine purpose.
The young woman meeting the man of her dreams thinks that she will fulfill her dreams by marrying him. However, her dreams may be God’s dreams for her. She may be entrusted with more dreams that include adoption, teaching religion, hospice ministry, etc.
Our hopes, our dreams, mature gradually and come to fulfillment over the course of a lifetime. What the author of the Joseph story in the book of Genesis understood and what the author of Matthew’s Gospel gleaned from Genesis is that God works through dreams. God’s will or purpose unfolds only gradually in our lives. The dreams we have are most likely God’s dreams for us. Bringing those dreams to reality means doing God’s will.
Meditation: What do you think is God’s dream for you? How has that understanding been revealed to you through your dreams?
Prayer: Ever-living God, you guided Joseph through his dreams to do your will. Fill us with the Holy Spirit to guide our dreams to do your will. Hear us through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.
Father
(2) Luke 2:41–51a
Scripture: [Jesus’ mother said to him:] “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety” (Luke 2:48).
Reflection: The second choice of a gospel passage for the Solemnity of St. Joseph is the second of two unique childhood stories about Jesus found in Luke’s Gospel. The first is commonly known as the presentation in the temple, and the second is called the finding of the boy Jesus in the temple.
The story is set on the occasion of Passover, the Jewish commemoration of the death of the firstborn son in Egypt. As God’s, Joseph’s and Mary’s firstborn son, Jesus will not return to Jerusalem until he prepares to mark his last Passover. Furthermore, Jesus is twelve years old; twelve is a sacred number, the product of three—the spiritual order—and four—the
