“If you knew the gift of God…” Jesus said to the Samaritan woman.
Today this gift is offered to Joseph in a dream. And Joseph welcomes it and shows us the way of acceptance. He welcomes it, accepts it with a great simplicity. Simply, as a call, a vocation; not as a difficulty to be resolved. He had overcome his interior struggle and so is open to the Mystery of God that will reveal itself as the Great Mystery of love, this love that continues to surprise us.
But there has been an interior struggle, we can imagine. Otherwise, his “yes” would have been not deep enough. Joseph, fiancé to Mary, sees his life suddenly put upside down. No longer can he control his own life, no longer can he possess what he thought was his own, nor can he choose what to do. Joseph is a righteous man; he knows how to put God’s will before his own plan of his life with Mary. Joseph chose faith in the God of his ancestors and let go of his “rights.” Joseph the Just, attentive to God’s voice. It means letting go of his righteousness, his resentment, his murmur. Listening to God’s voice or will means here to be available to God’s love. This attitude of Joseph shows also his inner freedom. He was not stuck in himself, not turned towards himself in a selfish way. The fact that he was sleeping when the angel came, shows that he was ready, already open to the Mystery that goes beyond him. In our own experience, we know very well how much our sleep can be disturbed when something bothers us. Joseph was sleeping; he was at peace and ready.
Joseph did not answer the angel. No word is recorded from him in the New Testament. But he acts upon what he heard, what his heart understood as God’s plan for him, for Mary, for the Child. Joseph obeys and acts. He put into practice God’s will, God’s plan, God’s unimaginable gift of his Son.
And Mary in all this? Something great happened in her. She did not explain to Joseph her own annunciation. She knew that everything came from the Holy Spirit. It was not her secret to share, and she let God announce to Joseph his part in this divine plan. The Book of Tobit (12: 7) talks about the secret of the king. Mary knew how to respect the plan of God.
It is not difficult to find a parallel between Joseph’s attitude and the dynamic of the Rule of Saint Benedict. I imagine that St Benedict meditated on this gospel when he wrote the Chapter 68: “If impossible things are commanded of a brother.” Like Joseph, the monk is called to listen, to let go of his own will expressed in resistance, murmuring, and even in resentment, to put into practice what he heard and to believe in the fruit of love who is Christ with us. “Out of love,” Benedict says, “confident of God’s help, may he obey.” The angel talks of the name of this child: Emmanuel, God-with-us; we find again this name at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, but this time in Jesus’ mouth: “I am with you till the end of the world.”
Joseph, the man of silence, shows us the way to welcome the Son of God made human who comes to us in the daily routine of our faith and love.
Sr. Claire Bouttin, Superior
4th Sunday of Advent, December 21, 2025
Is 7: 10-14; Ps 22; Rom 1: 1-7; Mt 1: 18-24
