Advent Reflections 2024 (Week 4)

Advent Reflections from St.Ambrose High School. These have been read by S6 students who are completing the Pope Benedict Caritas Award. A reflection for the fourth week of Advent The Dream of St Joseph During Advent we look for the coming of Christ in two directions. We look ahead, toward His coming in the future, at the end of time. This coming is emphasized more at the beginning of Advent. But we also look back, remembering His coming in the past, at the Incarnation. Here at the end of Advent, as we approach the great Christmas feast, it is this coming of Christ in history that receives the greater focus. It is easy for us to take the great mystery of the Incarnation for granted. We forget how radical a thing it truly is, the Creator entering into creation, because it happened in such a humble way. Our God did not burst forth into the world in a great flaming chariot. He came as a baby, born of a woman, born in a manger; an event heralded by angels but noticed only by a few shepherds. Our God chose a mother, Mary, she assented to be the Mother of God after being visited by the angel Gabriel at the annunciation. But what of Joseph? What must this have seemed like to him? He was a just man, concerned with doing what is right. He is betrothed to Mary, but has not yet taken her into his home. He finds Mary pregnant. He must have assumed that she had been with another. He must also have known this was not at all something Mary would do. He must have struggled deeply with this. He must have brought the matter to prayer. The gospel tells us that whatever else, Joseph did not desire to bring shame to Mary, and so resolved to divorce her quietly, without bringing her before the court. But before this can happen, Joseph has a dream. An angel appears to him and says: “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” (Mt 1:20–21). What on earth must Joseph have thought about this message? Whereas the angel “came” to Mary (Lk 1:28), he merely appears to Joseph in a dream — admittedly a dream that is real and reveals what is real. Once again this shows us an essential quality of the figure of St. Joseph: his capacity to perceive the divine and his ability to discern. Only a man who is inwardly watchful for the divine, only someone with a real sensitivity for God and His ways, can receive God’s message in this way… The message conveyed to Joseph is overwhelming, and it demands extraordinarily courageous faith. Our position now is not that different from Joseph’s in this gospel reading. We, too, hear a message that is beyond anything we might dare to hope. We, too, must choose whether and how to respond to this message. Joseph received God’s word through a messenger, and so we receive His word through messengers — ministers in the Church, the bishops, priests, deacons and lay faithful who have passed this word down to us. We, like Joseph, must discern how we will receive this message, and what response it demands of us. May we, like Joseph, be inwardly watchful, and learn to be sensitive to the ways of God. May we, like Joseph, be open to God’s message. And may we, like Joseph, possess the courage to receive Mary and her Son into our homes and into our hearts.