St. Joseph.
This Advent I am offering a series of reflections with the theme ‘The Faces She Saw’.
We’ll be thinking about some of the faces that Mother Mary saw in the lead-up to Christmass and today we reflect on the face of St. Joseph. What I hope this particular reflection teaches us, is that the Blessed Virgin Mary was a real person, with real thoughts, real emotions and real feelings. She lived, breathed, wept, laughed, ate and drank just like everyone here. We read about her ‘God side’ so often that we easily forget that she was just like you and me. Hec, she probably even smooched Joseph. So if she were writing a memoir it might go something like this.
He was ‘the older man’ in my life. I was flattered by his second glance, the first stirrings of womanhood pooling in my stomach. My heart beating faster and lighter. He had a fizzled grey beard with soft compassionate eyes that twinkled when he saw me. I tried to hide the smile that played on my lips whenever I saw him... It came unbidden, instinctive and it was there on my face before I had even thought about it.
Sure there were plenty who muttered and gossiped about us. Glowering looks at the fish market and my parents Joachim and Anne had plenty to say about it when I told them that we were engaged. Yes, they were pleased that I would be financially secure; but Joseph?… Really… of all people. “Are you quite sure about this?” Then when I came home to tell them the bewildering annunciation and that I was now with child, Joachim left the house in a blind fury determined to teach Joseph a lesson he would never forget. Mum broke down in uncontrollable inconsolable sobs. Her body heaving and wracking, moving to a rhythm that was beyond her control. I thought all the town would hear her sobbing… and they probably did one way or the other before the sun came up.
I knew where Joseph would be and I ran to him. We had already had ‘that uncomfortable chat’ and his befuddlement and bewilderment had evolved into a deeper love, a profound respect and a steely determination to support me no matter the harsh realities that we both knew would come our way. He too had said ‘Yes’ to God’s plan. Not with an angel to explain or to help. But by dreams and thinking and praying and wrestling and hurting. This is what made him so beautiful to me. This is what made him so good for me. In his way he had fought for me and he wanted to marry me.
As he took me in his arms I felt safe, secure, complete. I was whole and it was as if nothing could ever frighten me again. It would of course, many times over in so many ways that I could not see now. Like the time when we took Jesus to the temple as an infant only to have some old cook babble on about a sword piercing my heart. Not exactly an encouraging parish priest. The three fraught, angry days we spent looking for Jesus in Jerusalem only to find him unperturbed, almost arrogant in the temple. And even after Joseph had died, his face would always be visible to me. Surely he was there with me at the wedding at Cana, with the dancing and the food and the wine. Joseph would also be there at Golgotha. I could sense him speaking to me. His voice was clearer than the sound of the iron shocking the dumb wood. His words louder than the noise of the nails tearing through the flesh. Where else would Joseph be but there with me? His sense of comforting reassurance would always envelope me. This beautiful man. This lovely face, the one who loved me even when he didn’t, couldn’t understand.
But on this night, when my dad was breathing threats and stomping all over town, I was hiding with Joseph. I turned again, kissed him and I looked at his weathered, lined face. I stroked his thinning hair and watched the helpless tears run down his cheeks.
The world, for all its bitter confusion and uncertain future, was still wonderful, bursting with promise, just as long as I could go on gazing at this tanned, wrinkled, face. Here, looking into his eyes everything was so right, all was perfect. Everything was exactly as it should be. In his arms I was ‘home’. And yet… and yet.. if this was true. If this lovely mans face was the most reassuring, comforting, exquisite sight that I could ever hope to see, am seeing and want to go on seeing… then why am I crying?