Fr. Edson RODRIGUES(Pesqueira, Pernambuco, Brazil)

Today, the Advent liturgy presents us with Joseph, who receives a mission from God: The Word of God, who will be born of the Virgin, will also be placed under his paternal care. The prophet Isaiah had announced some 700 years earlier: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son” (Is 7:14). Perplexed and unable to understand such a great mystery, Joseph — God-fearing, and a “just and good” man — had decided to leave Mary quietly and allow her to return to her parents. But in the words of the messenger, he finds the reason to abandon this decision and to embrace the mystery and the plans of God: “Do not be afraid to take Mary, your wife, into your home!” (Mt 1:20). The Holy Spirit, who in Mary brought forth the incarnate Word, gives meaning to and confirms what the angel told Joseph, who receives the great mission of naming and caring for the God-Child conceived in the virginal womb of a young woman from Nazareth (cf. Mt 1:20-21).

Saint Bernardine of Siena says that “when divine Providence chooses someone for a particular grace or an exalted state, it also grants that person all the gifts needed to fulfill the mission.” And so Joseph, freed from fear and anxiety, became a collaborator in the work of the Incarnation, fully equipped to assume this honorable and demanding mission.

Today we live amid fears and uncertainties, in situations that sometimes discourage us and make us want to abandon ship, seeking escape routes as solutions to difficult realities. But in the midst of silent and contemplative prayer, the Lord also says to us: “Do not be afraid!” (cf. Mt 14:27), encouraging us to accept His designs with confidence and determination.

In our own time, Pope Leo XIV encourages us: “God loves us all, and evil will not prevail. We are all in God’s hands and, without fear, united to the hand of God and to one another, let us move forward.”

Thoughts on Today’s Gospel

• “He, who had the power to create everything from nothing, had refused to rebuild what had been desecrated if Mary had not agreed to it.” (Saint Anselm)
• “Saint Joseph was the model of a ‘just’ man who, in perfect harmony with his wife, welcomed the Son of God made man in an attitude of total availability to the divine desires.” (Benedict XVI)
• “‘God sent forth his Son’ (Gal 4:4), but to prepare a body for him, he wanted the free co-operation of a creature. For this, from all eternity God chose for the mother of his Son a daughter of Israel, a young Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee, ‘a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary’ (Lk 1:26-27). The Father of mercies willed that the Incarnation should be preceded by assent on the part of the predestined mother, so that just as a woman had a share in the coming of death, so also should a woman contribute to the coming of life.” (Catechism Of The Catholic Church, Nº 488)