Cum esset desponsata

“Cum esset desponsata”

It is traditional in monasteries to give a sermon on 20 December, when the Gospel is “The angel of the Lord was sent…” The sermon is called “Sermo super Missus Est”, and you will find examples as far back as St Bernard of Clairvaux. Legend has it that there was once a lay sister who only discovered in her eighties, after fifty-odd years in the monastery, that it was not a sermon “about Mrs S”…when it comes to transparency, monasteries still have a lot to learn.

However, I don’t think it’s fair to expect two sermons in two days, and since today’s Gospel reading is the annunciation not to Mary but to Joseph, I thought I would grab the opportunity to redress the balance a bit for those who feel that my sermons are sometimes a bit sexist. I do often wonder why St Joseph is consistently presented as inferior to, standing in the shadow of, his more prominent wife, not so much as a historical figure, but as a saint.

It is perfectly true that no word of his is recorded and that the total of his appearances is marginally less than hers, but what we do see is certainly not a second-class saint. Indeed, during the time when he was alive (it is clear that he was not alive by the time of the Crucifixion, and unlikely that he was so by the time Jesus’ “mother and brethren” came looking for him) there is only one incident in Mary’s life in which she appears alone, or else which is not paralleled in the life of Joseph, and that is the Visitation. I also wonder why it is that Mary is always portrayed as a silent woman – as an index of her humility – while in fact, though we have evidence of humility, we have none at all of silence. Surely the model of the silent and humble saint is rather Joseph, despite the fact that he was clearly a man of action (as was Mary a woman of action). His silence and his lack of interest in himself come through most clearly in today’s narrative, whose original can only have come from him. When Mary related the story of her Annunciation – Missus Est – she related faithfully all the details, what she said no less than what the Angel said. I suppose the narrative of the Visitation comes from her too, and she has given us not only Elizabeth’s words but her own Magnificat. When Joseph told the story of his Annunciation – Cum Esset Desponsata – and, perhaps, the story of the dream that led to the Flight Into Egypt, he did not think it of any importance what he said or did not say. He had to tell us that he had been considering “putting Mary away quietly” or the rest of the story would not have made sense, but that is the only information he ever gives about himself.

It may well be that he obeyed without a word, and I do not think he did have those doubts about Mary’s virtue that seem to be plaguing him in the icons of the Nativity, although even more faith was required of him than of her. Partly because her holiness must have been so blindingly obvious to a man hardly less holy than she; but also because he would never, being a righteous man, have married her unless the dream had been completely convincing; nor, I think, would he ever have admitted that he had contemplated “putting her away” had be retained any doubts. Mary’s consent was required for the conception of Christ, but Joseph’s was required if his preservation through childhood – and Mary’s preservation too, come to that – was not to demand a flood of complicated miracles and divine dispensations. Mary gave her consent in words, Joseph in actions. One might even say that his obedience was even more unhesitating than hers.

I am not saying – how could I – that Joseph was “a greater saint” than Mary. But I sometimes think it was a close-run thing. And while feminists complain that they suffer and are discriminated against because they are women, I would reply that in the great-saint stakes, Joseph was disadvantaged because he was a man. He did not have the Immaculate Conception because, as the mere foster-father of Christ, unrelated to him by blood, he didn’t need it. There was no reason why he should be completely untouched by original sin. He could not, as a man, conceive Christ in his body. He undoubtedly did conceive him in his heart, which is more important. St Augustine commented that Mary could not have conceived Christ in her body had she not already conceived him in her heart. But that possibility is open to anyone, not just to Joseph; and it can pass completely unnoticed except by God.

From his reticence about himself and the fact that he let Mary take the lead when it was not a matter of life and death, I suspect Joseph was relieved that he was only the foster-father and so need not be subjected to the limelight. Where was he when the Magi visited? Out mending someone’s door-frame? Discreetly in his workshop till they left? Joseph had the gift of being there when he was needed and disappearing when he was not.

I know that all God’s actions are supremely free. But in a way his choice of Joseph – of any man – to assist at this point in the plan of salvation was particularly gratuitous. A woman was strictly necessary and he chose and prepared a perfect one who, all the same, also cooperated perfectly with her gracing. But a man was not strictly necessary. I sometimes like to imagine that God would have been quite happy to preserve his incarnate Son without the help of a human foster-father, but, seeing the magnificent holiness of Joseph (before the world was made), was so captivated that he could not resist giving him to that Son as a birthday present. Joseph was the most perfectly beautiful creature that ever lived and attained to holiness with no special helps. He really was worthy to be the husband of the Queen of Heaven and, as I’ve said before, the understudy of the First Person of the Blessed Trinity. And all this addition to the essential (that a virgin should conceive and bear a son) perhaps provoked simply by one great saint. I m not suggesting that God was persuaded to change his mind, any more than our prayers do that. But the saints, and their prayers and ours, all have an essential place in the unfolding of God’s plan.

Perhaps you were surprised at my claim that more faith was required of Joseph than of Mary. I would go further. Faith has been satirically described as “the capacity to believe that which you know to be untrue”. But, you know, that is very much what seemed to be required of Joseph. I do not think there has ever been a person asked to base his whole life upon something for which he had no evidence and which everyone, including himself, knew to be impossible. Mary was told specifically that nothing is impossible for God’ Joseph just had to know it without being told. Blessed are those who have not been told and yet believe! Mary, in fact, despite the enormity of what she was asked to believe, had solid evidence such as has rarely been vouchsafed to anyone. Every other human being had to believe that she was a mother and a virgin; she alone knew it. But Joseph – well, it is he and not St Rita of Cascia who should be the patron saint of the impossible. Politics may be the art of the possible; St Joseph teaches us, without a word, that sanctity is sometimes the art of the impossible. And he should know; he was married to a living impossibility: a virgin mother.

Which does not mean that sanctity is impossible. I am sure that when Jesus made his celebrated comparison he did not have in his mind’s eye a miserable and hopeless-looking camel, regarding with depression the tiny eye of a minuscule needle. What he saw was that camel squeezing happily through the needle’s eye. losing the odd package, perhaps, but emerging unscathed. It really is true. For God all things are possible.

Joseph fidelissime, ora pro nobis!