December 22nd 2019. Fourth Sunday of Advent

GOSPEL: Matthew 1:18-24

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini broadcast on Vatican Radio

 

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Don Fabio’s homily follows the Gospel

GOSPEL: Matthew 1, 18-24

This is how Jesus Christ came to be born. His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph; but before they came to live together she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph; being a man of honour and wanting to spare her publicity, decided to divorce her informally. He had made up his mind to do this when the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you must name him Jesus, because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins.’ Now all this took place to fulfil the words spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son
and they will call him ‘Emmanuel,’
a name which means ‘God-is-with-us’.

When Joseph woke up he did what the angel of the Lord had told him to do: he took his wife to his home.

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ

 

1. How does salvation work? Not by us taking the initiative and pursuing our own ideas! Rather, God takes the initiative and speaks to our hearts. If we are open to his action, and prepared to abandon our own plans, then he can achieve great fruits through us.

On this fourth Sunday of Advent we read from the first chapter of Matthew – the story of Joseph’s dream and his adhesion to the will of God. There are many details in this story. What key should we use for interpreting this text as we get ready to welcome the Lord? The passage begins: “This is how Jesus Christ came to be born.” Then we hear how a girl was with child through the work of the Holy Spirit. It is God who takes the initiative in our lives. So there is this girl who is pregnant through the activity of God and we have this man, Joseph, who is confronted with the situation and must find a solution. He comes up with various possible solutions, more or less noble, but then God again takes the initiative and speaks to his heart through a dream. This dream is an image of the profound interior spiritual life of this man. Joseph is told not to fear. This is how the Lord works. He takes the initiative and speaks to our hearts, helping us to enter into the events of the history of salvation. It is always possible to see the events of our life on two levels: on the purely biological level of cause and effect; or with an openness to the work of God. This dream of Joseph, and the faith in the depths of our hearts, tells us that there is something more, that the providential will of God is operating in things. We always run the risk of looking at things only on the surface, not seeing the invisible, that which is hidden.

 

2. We must believe in that dream, that inner voice that tells us that we have a place in God’s plan. Just as the Lord needed Joseph, so too he wishes to use all of us.

It is at this point – the moment when Joseph sees the seed of God in the depths of the event – that this man becomes a father and participates in the greatest event in the history of salvation. Each one of us can participate in such great things when we surrender to the invisible. How often life is pregnant with the providential work of God and we must learn to welcome it with a willingness to abandon our own projects and plans. Let us prepare for Christmas by opening ourselves to what the Lord wishes to do with us. Jesus always comes in unexpected ways. He was born in circumstances not considered apt for the Messiah, and right up to his death he had a form that was not welcomed by everyone. We must believe in that dream, that inner voice that tells us that we have a place in God’s plan. Just as the Lord needed Joseph, so too he wishes to use all of us. If we welcome the work of God in our lives, then it will reach its fruition. Just as Joseph named the child, an act of naming that was part of his paternal role, giving the child nobility and identity, so too we have the role of telling the new generation that they are salvation, that they are the handiwork of God. They were not born by chance. To welcome, to nourish, to protect the work of God, this is what we are called to constantly. God saves us, not in the way we think, but in the way he thinks, according to his sublime plan of love.

 

ALTERNATIVE HOMILY

When God enters history, he does so in ways that are difficult for us to comprehend. If the Lord confined himself to doing things that we understood or approved of, then he would end up acting in very mediocre ways! In the Gospel, Joseph finds himself with an apparently impossible decision to make. He believes that he must divorce Mary, but he does not want her to suffer the terrible consequences. An angel appears to him in a dream and addresses him as a “son of David”. Joseph is of noble lineage, even if he is a mere carpenter! It is Joseph who will have the honour of naming Jesus, and it is through this act that Jesus will be legally of the line of David. It is Joseph who confers on Jesus the Davidic dynasty by welcoming him as his son! There is a message here for all of us. If we, like Joseph, welcome the action of God in our lives, then we too, like Joseph, will recognize that we too are of noble lineage. We too can permit God to work wonders in our lives, as Joseph did. Like Mary, Joseph welcomes the power and action of God in a virginal way. He gives Jesus his identity. Jesus’ body was generated in the womb of Mary, but was nourished by the bread that Joseph earned. For our present generation, which has  a crisis of fatherhood, it is good to look at the figure of Joseph who welcomes Jesus, recognizes him, gives him an identity and nurtures him. Like Joseph, we too must be open to God. Like him we must be ready to say, “I am here Lord. Do with me whatever you will. I will put my name and my signature on the things that you ask me to do. I will expend myself for your sake”. This is the wonderful calling that the Lord has for all of us.