“A Man of Honor and Integrity” by Colleen O’Sullivan
Behold,
the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will raise up a righteous shoot to
David; As king, he shall reign and
govern wisely, he shall do what is just and right in the land. In his days Judah shall be saved, Israel
shall dwell in security. This is the
name they give him: "The LORD our justice." (Jeremiah 23:5-6)
For he
shall rescue the poor when he cries out, and the afflicted when he has no one
to help him. He shall have pity for the lowly and the poor; the lives of the
poor he shall save. (Psalm 72:12-13)
Joseph her
husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided
to divorce her quietly. Such was his
intention when behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and
said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into
your home. For it is through the Holy
Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. She will bear a son and you are to name him
Jesus because he will save his people from their sins." (Matthew 1:19-21)
Piety
St. Joseph, may I honorably live as you did,
seeking to do the will of God rather than seeking the affirmation of the world.
Study
 |
| Guido Reni, St. Joseph and the Christ Child, 1640, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Public Domain, Google Art Project |
Years ago, when I was studying German, I read
Theodor Fontane’s Effi Briest, an 1895 novel about the sometimes tragic
strictures of late 19th-century German societal norms and the clash
between feelings and passion and obligation.
Effi is a 17-year-old from an aristocratic family, whose father arranges
her marriage to a man 21 years older. The
newlywed husband is an administrator for the government. He spends much of his time away from home
working. The whole relationship seems
doomed from the very beginning. Ignored
and lonely, Effi eventually falls for the charms of a man who is around to pay
attention to her. The saddest part of
the story comes when her husband discovers the affair and struggles with his
genuine love for her and the dictate of the society of that era that he divorce
her lest his honor be besmirched. He
goes with the latter.
In today’s Gospel reading, Joseph finds himself
struggling with what appears to be the same sort of conflict. He cares a great deal for his betrothed,
Mary. He has little desire to shine the
spotlight on what looks like her infidelity, so he settles on a quiet divorce
as the solution that neither totally destroys Mary nor makes him the
laughingstock of family and friends.
Joseph has a dream one night amid all this
inner turmoil. It indeed seemed to him
that Mary had been unfaithful, but an angel speaks to Joseph while he sleeps,
verifying what Mary has told him. He
learns that the Holy Spirit conceived the child. The angel asks Joseph to be a foster father
to the Son of God. Joseph takes
seriously what the angel says and invites Mary into his home to be his
wife. He stops being concerned about
what others think of him. Honor, for
him, is more about doing what God desires than about doing what the world dictates. And, in this instance, God is looking for an
upright, kind man to be the human father to his Son.
Action
In this third week in Advent, we catch a rare
glimpse into the inner workings of St. Joseph, the man God put in Jesus’ life
to help raise him. Joseph was a person
of honor and integrity. What does honor
mean to us some 2,000 years later? Is it
about seeking to fulfill God’s desires or about looking for fulfillment as the
world defines it?
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