Homily for Sunday, 29 December 2019– The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph

Readings of the day: Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14; Psalm 128:1-2, 3, 4-5; Colossians 3:12-21; Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

This homily was given at St. Clare Church and St. Joseph’s College, Edmonton, AB, Canada.

Did we miss something? Our Gospel reading today begins as “the wise men” have already left the place of the Lord’s Nativity in Bethlehem. At least I thought we did not celebrate the Epiphany, the “making known” of the Lord through these wise men to the world, until the first Sunday after the New Year. At this point in our Christmas season, we would not yet have the wise men at the Nativity Scene in our house. When I was a child, my sister, brother, and I would simulate the journey and belated arrival of the wise men to Bethlehem by inching the wise men figurines, day by day, a little closer to the Nativity scene at home until they finally arrived there on the Epiphany. By this point in the Christmas season, the magi would still have most of the living room to cover before arriving at the Nativity scene!

Yet today, on this Solemnity of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Matthew’s Gospel says that the wise men had already arrived and left. Maybe they simply decided to arrive early this year, right? Maybe they braved those Boxing Day sales on gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Well, not really. We will still celebrate the Epiphany, when we will hear of the arrival of the magi at Bethlehem from the same Gospel of Matthew. So what is going on here?

First, let us be clear that our Church’s celebration of Advent and Christmastime is not play-acting, and it does not follow an orderly timeline of historical events. If our Church’s celebrations this time of year do not follow a precise order of historical events, then what is their purpose? What was Matthew’s purpose in giving us the Gospel we hear today and, more importantly, what might it mean for us today?

This part of the infancy narrative, as it is called, of Matthew’s Gospel, from Matthew’s telling of how Jesus came to be born of Mary and Joseph, to the arrival and parting of the wise men, to the Holy Family’s flight to and return from Egypt to escape the massacre by Herod, is particular to Matthew in many ways. Compared to the other Gospels in our Bible, Matthew devotes much more detail especially to Joseph, husband of Mary. Even then, though, we know little about this Joseph of Nazareth from our Gospels; of the man Matthew first introduces to us as “a righteous man,” concerned not to put Mary in danger after she conceives Jesus “by the Holy Spirit” before she and Joseph live together. Joseph never speaks a word in Matthew’s or any of the other Gospels. But those three words of Matthew’s to describe Joseph, “a righteous man,” speak volumes about the saintliness of Joseph; about his care for his family—the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—about his care for us, the Church, and about how we might be called to model our lives after that of St. Joseph and the Holy Family.

Joseph may not speak a word in our Gospels, but he is a master communicator, especially with God but with us, too. Joseph communicates with God through an angel in three dreams in Matthew’s infancy narrative, the last two of them in today’s Gospel reading: First, when the angel says to Joseph not to fear and to take the pregnant Mary into his home as his wife; second, before the Holy Family’s escape to Egypt; and, third, when Joseph hears from the angel that Herod is dead and it is safe to return with Mary and Jesus from Egypt home to Israel.

In many ways Matthew’s presentation of Joseph of Nazareth parallels, deliberately or not on Matthew’s part, how another Joseph famous for dreaming and interpreting dreams is presented in the Old Testament Book of Genesis. God reveals his favour toward the Joseph of Genesis through dreams; God favours Joseph over his brothers in a way that angers Joseph’s brothers and leads them to leave Joseph in a cistern in Egypt to die. The Joseph of Genesis, of course, survives and goes on to be a prominent figure (and dream interpreter) in prison and then in Pharaoh’s court.

The parallels between Joseph of the Book of Genesis and Joseph of our Gospels are not perfect: The New Testament Joseph does not speak a word recorded in our Bible, whereas the Old Testament Joseph speaks plenty, interprets his dreams vocally, and would go on to have the story of his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (loosely) told in a famous Andrew Lloyd Webber rock opera. Joseph of Nazareth is more of a humble behind-the-scenes dreamer, although he, like his Old Testament name counterpart, is a prophetic figure. Joseph of Nazareth plays a critical role in the fulfillment of “the law and the prophets” in Jesus Christ according to Matthew’s Gospel.

Joseph of Nazareth is a master communicator; an obedient communicator with God, not so much in the sense of blindly following what God’s angel tells him to do in his dreams as in the sense of attentive listening to what God reveals to him through these dreams. Joseph is, first and foremost, “a righteous man”; these are Matthew’s first words to describe Joseph.

Joseph of Nazareth is a model and a prophet from God to us; a master communicator to us in his faithfulness to and his care for Mary and Jesus. Joseph of Nazareth is a model and a prophet to us of solidarity with the most vulnerable among us. Without hesitation, Joseph the Righteous welcomes Mary into his home as his wife. Without hesitation, Joseph flees Herod’s tyranny, placing himself along with Mary and Jesus in solidarity with everybody through the ages who are unwelcome or subject to violence, even in their own homelands; people who continue to encounter not welcome but walls, literal and figurative, in the lands to which they flee desperately for safety; all people who, as Pope Francis reminded us on Christmas Day, continue to be subject to injustices that make them “cross seas and deserts that become cemeteries.”

Today, on this Solemnity of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we remember and we celebrate St. Joseph of Nazareth, who never hesitates to place himself within our human realities, from the joyful to the tragic. The obedience, faithfulness, and attentiveness of Joseph of Nazareth to God shows us the immaculate purity of Mary, Mother of God; mother of the Church; our mother. This, in turn, shows us the way to God and to God’s Son, Jesus Christ; the way to our salvation.

The Holy Family of Jesus our Lord and Saviour, Mary our Mother, and the righteous dreamer, Joseph, exemplifies a truth expressed so beautifully nearer to our time, in the opening lines of Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes: “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the people of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the followers of Christ… United in Christ, [we] are led by the Holy Spirit in [our] journey to the Kingdom of [our] Father and [we welcome] the news of salvation that is meant for every person. That is why this community [the Church] realizes that it is truly linked with humankind and its history by the deepest of bonds.”

Our “joys and hopes,” and if I dare say dreams, were the “joys and hopes” of the Holy Family. They were central to the dreams of Joseph the Righteous of Nazareth, Joseph’s silent yet prophetic communication and intercession between God and us. They are the “joys and hopes”; the dreams of our Church, of one another, for one another here at a most essential level. These are “the joys and the hopes”; the most essential dream of God for us: That, through Jesus Christ, through the intercession of the Holy Family and all the saints, our journeys; our lives, our experiences from the joyful to the tragic, will lead us home to God himself, to eternal life.