Fourth Sunday of Advent

Year A

[Isaiah 7 : 10-16 (shorter form 7 : 10-14) ; 

Psalm 24 (23) : 1-6 ;

Romans 1 : 1-7 ;

Matthew 1 : 18-24]

Today Joseph has a dream. I am reminded of the “I have a dream” speech by Martin Luther King Jr., during the march in Washington for jobs and freedom, on August 28, 1963. It changed the course of civil rights movements in the United States. President John F. Kennedy was so impressed that two months later he said in Dublin, “We need men and women who can dream of things that never were.” Both were murdered. But their dreams must go on - to be able to trace the path to the future.

And then in this weekend’s gospel Joseph has a dream. What sort of dream is it? The position of the English poet and Jesuit priest, Gerard Manley Hopkins, 19th century, clarifies that a bit for us. Hopkins talks about the outscape and the inscape, that is, the outer landscape and the inner landscape of our lives. Well, what is the outer landscape? The outer landscape is comprised of all the things in our external world: our genealogy, our customs, traditions, our relationships, and then our jobs, world events, social crises, political happenings and the list could go on and on. That is the outer landscape.

Our inner landscape is quite different. It is comprised of those moments when we gaze inward and go deeper and deeper and seek the living God. This weekend’s gospel is a good illustration of the outer landscape and the inner landscape. Joseph learns his fiancée is pregnant and the child is not his. We can imagine his inner turmoil. He must have had a great variety of emotions, disappointment, frustration and at the same time a regard for Mary whom he must have always loved. So, he decides to divorce her quietly. In terms of the outer landscape, he made a good decision for he was a just man, says the gospel.

But then Joseph went to sleep and had a dream. And dreams in the Bible don’t necessarily mean simple phenomena. Rather a dream is a deep interior space in which we encounter God (1). And when Joseph goes into the inner landscape what he hears is a voice. It is the voice of the angel saying, “Don’t be afraid to take Mary into your home, because she has conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and you will name your son Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.” Now think about it: in that moment, Joseph had to make a decision. “Do I follow the logic of the outer landscape, or do I follow the logic of the inscape?”

And today, the liturgy presents Joseph as our model. What was it like to him to receive this Annunciation? Joseph realized that what appeared to be true on the surface may not be the truth of God. And so, Joseph deviated from what the law dictated, and made a decision to follow the mystery. Joseph cooperated, Joseph compromised, Joseph surrendered, Joseph let go of his plans and Joseph made space. Joseph prepared room in his heart for the new reality. Joseph accepted the unexpected and because of everything that Joseph did, Christ found a home. Christ was made welcome, Christ was nourished, Christ was supported and God’s saving power was let loose more fully into the world. In a few days it is going to be Christmas, the birth of Christ, but today, it is the birth of the Holy Family.

Pope Francis, in his encyclical Patris Corde which is about St. Joseph, writes, “

St. Joseph reminds us that those who appear hidden or in the shadows can play an incomparable role in the history of salvation”.

Joseph is our wonderful companion. The true joy, the true peace, the truth itself are fruits of our journey inwards. And then our outer landscape puts on new meaning, and even a sense of order, in the chaos. Yes, steadiness in life is not yet lost; it’s only deeply buried beneath the noise of the world.

In Montreal, Saint Joseph and his devotee Saint Brother André are considered patrons of those having problems with their outer landscape. They pray to these two saints and miraculously find the solution to their problems.

Amen.

(1) In the Bible, God guides his chosen ones through dreams (Jacob: Genesis 28: 10-15;

Balaam: Numbers 22: 20-21; Nathan: II Samuel 7: 1-17; Solomon: I Kings 3: 5-9; Paul: Acts 9:1-9; 16: 9-10 and II Corinthians 12: 2-4). Psychoanalysis now says that our dreams are the royal road to our subconscious.

(See Tiburtius Fernandez, Homilies for Year A, Fourth Sunday of Advent, © St. Paul’s Publications, Bandra, Mumbai, India, 2022, pp. 30-34).