Joseph Through The Darkness

Solemnity of St. Joseph, Husband of Mary                                                    March 19, 2020
Fr. Albert                                                                                St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette

For the Homily, start at 10:09
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“Why have you done this to us?” Everyone asks this question. We all look to God or the universe or other people and ask why we must suffer. Mary and Joseph are the two holiest human beings to have ever lived, and they are no exception.

“Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” Truly, why would the most perfect son, Jesus Christ, God incarnate, cause such anxiety to two people he loves so dearly? If God is love, why do we suffer? Why does it seem like God himself is sometimes the one who causes us to suffer, as he does here with Joseph and Mary? There is the standard answer, the truth we cannot forget. All suffering ultimately comes from Original Sin, which broke the world and our human nature, causing us to suffer and die.

But Mary doesn’t even have original sin! Why is she tormented so? Because the suffering is the gap between what we think we know and what is actually true. The gap between what we are and what we’re meant to be. Mary, like her son, was called to bear witness to way past this gap even though she herself had never sinned.

Which is why the example of St. Joseph is so valuable. No immaculate conception, no divine nature, and not even a single speaking part – Joseph’s witness is invaluable in teaching us “unimportant” sinners just how we cross the gap from sinner to saint, from death to life, from anxiety to peace. It is the witness of faith.

Throughout salvation history, God repeatedly promised great things to his people. Also throughout that history, God let his people suffer and die, usually before they could experience the fulfillment of his promises. They could only have faith it would be true one day. Abraham was promised many descendants, but spent most of his life with no children, and only had two by the time he died. Yet “he believed, hoping against hope, that he would become the father of many nations.”

God swore to give his people their own country, but it was hundreds of years – most filled with slavery – before anyone actually got to live in the promised land. David the king is promised an eternal kingdom, yet Israel was conquered by one pagan empire after another. And David’s royal line leads to a poor carpenter in Nazareth.

But faith was not gone. Joseph and his wife – and all the Jews – still hoped for the fulfillment of God’s promises. Again and again throughout history, when people held faith in God, the promises were fulfilled even if only for their children, grandchildren, or great-great grandchildren. They trusted thought they did not understand why

The reason why is simple. Original sin was a failure to trust and obey God. Salvation comes from trusting and obeying God. Faith is not faith if we can see it. The suffering we experience in being redeemed is the process of being transformed from what we are to what we believe we will be. When it feels like God is far away, our faith tells us he is still close, doing his invisible work in our souls.

When Joseph and Mary lose Jesus in the temple, it is also a symbol of that darkness. When we cannot see God with us, we naturally look for him. But our senses are not the most reliable source. There comes a time in a soul’s spiritual life – sometimes multiple times – when we experience distance from God and can only rely on faith that he is there.

This is the reason for Jesus’ odd question. “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” In the literal sense, he was in the Temple. In the spiritual sense, Jesus is affirming that he is always with God the Father as his Son. Yes, the Father’s House is the temple – or for us, our Churches – but God is everywhere, beyond time and space. He especially makes our souls his house when we are baptized.

You are separated from Christ in the Eucharist right now. Perhaps you are anxiously looking for him because you can no longer experience his presence in communion or in being at Mass in person. But he is not gone. He is in his Father’s house here and he is in his Father’s house in your soul.

Three days. That’s how long he was gone from Joseph and Mary. Three days is how long he was gone from us all in death. Three days, three weeks, three months – the time away is a time of darkness, but also a time of faith. It is a time to trust that he is there in the darkness. Only in heaven will we look back and see how we grew more during times of darkness than during times of consolation, often exponentially so.

“He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them.” This is both a promise that the darkness will end and a guide on how to come through it. Obedience. When Abraham was told to sacrifice Isaac, he obeyed God, trusting him. When David wanted to build a temple but God told him no, he obeyed. When Joseph wanted to divorce Mary, God told him to stay, so he obeyed. These acts of obedience, often off-putting or painful, proved their faith and brought them through to their reward. So important is obedience that God himself became a little child obedient to human beings. Mary was immaculately conceived, but Joseph was not. Yet Jesus obeyed them both. How much more must we be obedient to God the Father’s will as shown to us in the imperfect, vicarious fathers in the Church?

“Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” That house is the Church, yes. That house is also your obedience to the law of God and to those he has given his authority. That house, by virtue of your faith, is your own soul. Though you are stuck at home, know that Jesus is there with you in the cooking and cleaning, the homeschooling and disciplining, the working and sleeping, the playing and praying in your house. This separation is only temporary, and not as real as it seems. Let yourself long for the house of God, but let your faith also tell you that your faith, your home, and your own soul is indeed your Father’s house, where Jesus must be.