Saint Joseph Revisited
There it was — tucked into the middle of the Gospel of Matthew chapter 2. I had read or heard read that verse hundreds of times, but somehow I had missed it every time. How could that be? Like the voice of John the Baptist crying out in the desert, it had been calling out to me. But I guess I was not ready to hear it until last week.
The passage in question dealt with the Holy Family’s exile into Egypt. Joseph, Mary and Jesus were returning to Judaea, but along the way Joseph had a change of plan. “…When he heard that Archelaus was ruling in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go back there.” So Joseph adjusted the route and took his family to Galilee, where they settled in a town called Nazareth.
In the Christian tradition Joseph comes off as a supporting actor in a cast of strong-willed or charismatic people. It’s why artists have consistently portrayed him as an elderly man who quietly devoted his final years in service to Jesus and Mary. But this verse suggests a determination in Joseph that I’d not considered before. Joseph thought for himself, and he was was capable of decisive action. And in this particular case he didn’t need an angel to tell him what to do. In short order I had to junk my life-long impression of Joseph as the passive actor who stood quietly in the shadows.
So what have I learned from this? First, I appreciate the fact that Joseph was an astute man capable of independent thought and decisive action. He reminds me that God gave us brains and God meant us to use them. And to those who think that being Christian requires checking an open mind at the door of the Church, Joseph offers a stern rebuke. God gave us intellect and imagination, as well as the energy to put them into the service of the Lord.
The second lesson has to do with the value of revisiting the sacred texts day after day, week after week, and year after year. As monks we read the same 150 psalms over and over and over again. While some might see that as a pointless waste of time, in fact those same 150 psalms have a capacity to nourish that is astounding.
If that’s true for the Psalms, it’s also true for the Scriptures as a whole. Medieval monks and nuns read big chunks of the Bible year after year, and they read those passages aloud. In that exercise the text leaps from the page to the eyes, courses through the brain, and as it passes through the lips the ears hear the words as well. In their experience the reader and the text became one, and it was a total sensory experience. That said, the ancients would have been the first to admit that it could become familiar food. But every now and again there was a morsel to savor in a new way.
That experience is not the exclusive preserve of monks and nuns — be they medieval or modern. Those morsels are available to any who would take and read — or merely listen. Perhaps the next time we take and eat the food that nourishes our body we should give a thought to the food that nourishes our spirit. After all, it’s right there for the taking. Better still, it’s free for the taking.
NOTES
+On Christmas Eve we prayed vespers in the Great Hall, which is the space where the monks of Saint John’s Abbey prayed for eighty years before moving to the new abbey church in 1960. The acoustics in that Romanesque space are perfect for our voices, and being there makes the beginning of Christmas a moving experience.
+Christmas Eve Mass at the abbey began with a concert of sacred music, presented by the abbey schola and The Saint John’s Boys Choir. Mass followed at 10:00 pm, and over eight hundred guests joined us for that service. As usual, the music was superb and Abbot John’s homily well-crafted and delivered.
+The illustrations in today’s post show a 13th-century altar frontal that originally was in the church of Santa María de Cardet in Cataluña. Today it is housed in the Museum of Catalan Art in Barcelona.