Hi everyone – here’s my homily for the FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT. I hope and pray that this last week of Advent is an opportunity for all of us to grow in greater appreciation for how Jesus still comes to us each and every day…
HOMILY:
One of the reasons I have great devotion and admire St. Joseph so much is because of today’s Gospel reading. Because we’ve heard it so many times, it loses some of it’s dramatic impact – but one thing that hits me is that Joseph has more faith in God and trust in God than in himself. In our self-help, affirm me – affirm me society that doesn’t make a lot of sense.
But if we try to imagine what he’s going through – here he’s been dating Mary – they’re engaged – he Loves Mary and she gives him this tale about being pregnant by the Holy Spirit. I try to imagine how his mind had to have been all over the place
– Is she crazy?
– Has she been crazy the whole time and I didn’t see it?
– Does she think I’m stupid?
– I can’t believe she did this to me… I can’t believe this.
And maybe that was his Prayer to God that night. Maybe, rather than losing it on Mary he didn’t say a word to he. Maybe he carried his broken heart to God and in his silence prayed “but I still Love her God, I don’t want to hurt her – I’ll just divorce her quietly…”
God enters and confirms this impossible story. And something else jumps out that’s kind of interesting – He does it in a dream though. The angel doesn’t appear to Joseph like Gabriel appears to Mary while she was awake. Which is a good reminder that Mary and Joseph’s vocation came to them in different ways. God knew both of them intimately and challenges them to deeper love, deeper relationship with Him in ways special to both of them.
So getting back to Joseph. Joseph wakes up, and has a choice to have deep faith and believe what the angel told him or to dismiss it simply as a crazy dream at the end of a earth-shattering day for a man.
He had to be willing to really believe and have faith in a way that called him out like never before.
For you and I, this Gospel has the danger of falling into a nostalgic retelling of The Christmas Story – something that doesn’t impact me other than getting that warm feeling that comes from something beautifully familiar.
But the Gospel message is alive and there’s a message and challenge for us today: What is God calling me to? Do I have more faith and trust that the creator of the universe who has no beginning and no end might know better than me in my years on this earth? Can I let go of my attempt to control all aspects of my life and, be a true disciple – to wake up and to do as the Lord had commanded?
St. Joseph, pray for us…
