Fr Antonio Pineda
ur patron saint, Joseph the carpenter, figures prominently in the Gospel this Sunday. Joseph is often called the silent saint because he’s not recorded as saying anything anywhere in the Bible, but in this Sunday’s Gospel – often referred to as the Annunciation to Joseph – we learn a great deal from him.
The Gospel passage refers to Joseph as a “man of honour”, a faithful Jew who knew the history of his people (Matthew 1:19). As such, he knew that God had freed the Israelites from slavery and had rescued them time and again over the centuries. He knew the many signs that God had performed and the many battles He had won for them.
So when an angel told Joseph that it was through the Holy Spirit that his betrothed, Mary, had conceived a child, perhaps he remembered the many great things God had done in the past. If God could do all those incredible things, then what the angel was telling him was possible as well. This is the lesson we learn from Joseph: trust in God.
Trust in God came to Joseph easily because he believed in God’s power and goodness. Though a humble man, Joseph knew that God could act just as profoundly in his own life as He had in the lives of his forefathers. That helped him believe that God had brought him and Mary together for a special purpose, one that would unfold day by day. So “he did what the angel of the Lord had told him to do: he took his wife to his home”.
Trust: this is our call as well. It can be hard, especially when there is no angel or dream to guide us. But we know that Jesus, God incarnate, died and rose from the dead so that He could give us new life.
This knowledge will help us when we are tempted to doubt. When we are walking in the dark, when we don’t see a way forward or a way out, we can choose to believe that God will find a way for us. He has a good plan for us, and he will carry it out in his own perfect time. And when our trust is flagging, let’s remember Joseph, the righteous man whose trust in God helped bring salvation to the world.