Homily for Thursday, 19 March 2015– Solemnity of St. Joseph, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Readings of the day: 2 Samuel 7:4-5a, 12-14a, 16; Psalm 89:2-3, 4-5, 27, 29; Romans 4:13, 16-18, 22; Luke 2:41-51a

Who was St. Joseph? He never speaks a word in Scripture. He is traditionally said to be a carpenter. He worked hard at his trade and was a good and holy husband to Mary. He was of the family line of King David, begun with the prophecy of Nathan we hear in our first reading today from 2 Samuel. We know from Scripture that St. Joseph was a man of deep faith. Our second reading today from Romans, on this feast day of St. Joseph, remembers Abraham, whose faith “was credited to him as righteousness.” Abraham’s faith was a gift from God.

And the same could be said of Joseph: He held a deep yet humble, even silent faith that was God’s gift to him. Joseph’s faith was the faith of Abraham; God’s gift of “righteousness.” Because of how Joseph lived his faith, God gave him the remarkable, and sometimes terrifying, responsibility along with his wife Mary of raising Jesus, the Son of God made human.

But other than this, do we know much about St. Joseph? The last we hear of St. Joseph in the Bible is in today’s Gospel reading. When Jesus “was twelve years old,” Luke says, he went with Joseph and Mary to Jerusalem for the Passover. Jesus becomes separated from Joseph and Mary, who frantically search for him. Imagine the crowds in Jerusalem; having to search for a child in a city of this size during the Passover! Having been to Jerusalem, I can imagine the crowds for the Passover and Joseph’s and Mary’s distress at losing Jesus. Can any of us who have children; who have ever experienced losing a child in a crowd, imagine how terrifying this would have been for Joseph and Mary, even more clearly than I can?

And yet Joseph never says a word. He leaves the speaking to Mary: “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” Was Joseph so terrified at losing Jesus in Jerusalem? Was he so relieved at finding him in the Temple, or so “astounded” to find Jesus teaching the best teachers of the Jewish faith in the Temple about the Law and the prophets; “listening to them and asking them questions,” that Joseph was speechless? All this is possible, even probable, but we will never fully know.

We cannot know from Scripture fully who St. Joseph was: Was he really a carpenter, or what did he do to earn a living? Did St. Joseph ever take questions about his faith to prayer? Why does St. Joseph never speak in Scripture, and why is he not mentioned after Jesus is found in the Temple?

We know little about who St. Joseph was. Still, we celebrate St. Joseph with today’s feast: Faithful Joseph, husband of Mary; descendant of David; earthly father to Jesus; patron and protector of the family; of fathers; of those who are poor (whom we remember especially with our parish’s St. Joseph Tables!). We celebrate what we know of St. Joseph; what we do not know; what we hold humbly; silently as mysteries of faith.

Homily for Saturday, 28 June 2014‒ Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Readings of the day: Lamentations 2:2, 10-14, 18-19; Psalm 74:1b-2, 3-5, 6-7, 20-21; Luke 2:41-51

On this feast of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, why are our readings from Scripture so gloomy?

We hear first today from the Book of Lamentations, in which Israel has been reduced to hunger; to exile; to fighting for survival as a nation. Lamentations and again the Psalmist invite the people of Israel to appeal to the Lord for their survival; “for the lives of [their] little ones” especially. We echo the Psalmist with our response: “Lord, forget not the souls of your poor ones.” (As we make this prayer, let us not forget the poor among us, here in our city and in our communities.)

The Gospel is not much brighter than our first reading, from Lamentations, or our Responsorial Psalm. Jesus becomes lost in Jerusalem during his family’s yearly Passover visit there. How many of us have ever lost sight of our child, even momentarily, in a busy public place? This can be a frightening experience! Imagine losing your child for three full days, as Joseph and Mary lost Jesus in Jerusalem for three days before he was found “listening to” the Jewish teachers in the Temple “and asking them questions.”

Last summer, I visited Jerusalem as part of a Basilian Peace and Justice Pilgrimage. One of my biggest fears was to become separated from our group and lost in Jerusalem, a city I do not know well, with large crowds and narrow, often uneven streets…

Jesus becomes lost for three days in the noisy chaos of Jerusalem. The Gospel writer Luke intends this event to be a foreshadowing of the passion and death of Christ. We are invited to read and hear the rest of the Gospel in light of the cross, death, and resurrection of Christ.

After his death on the cross, Jesus Christ becomes lost to us; lost for three days in the silent chaos of hell. God loves us so much that even hell cannot and will not remain forever without God’s presence. As we profess in our Creed on Sundays and important Holy Days, Jesus “descended into hell” to bring God’s salvation even there. And so the sorrow of the death of Christ, foreshadowed by the loss of Christ in Jerusalem, is not the end. Sorrow will end in joy; in Jesus and in us being found; in our being saved. Do not our gloomy readings today point to this joy; to our salvation?

And so what makes Mary’s heart especially “immaculate” that we celebrate her Immaculate Heart the day after her Son’s Sacred Heart? Mary is immaculate of heart, I think, because of what her heart treasured: Both the sorrows and joys of bringing into the world; of raising as a child; of watching suffer, die, and rise the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ. In her immaculate heart, Luke says, Mary “kept all these things.”

May we, after the example of Mary, treasure God’s presence in our hearts both in times of sorrow and of joy; trusting in God in times of sorrow and giving thanks to God in times of joy.