Homily for the
4th Sunday of Advent
Dec. 21, 2025
Matt 1: 18-25
The Fountains, Tuckahoe
Assumption, Bronx
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx
 |
| Joseph's Dream (Rembrandt) |
“She was found with child thru the Holy Spirit” (Matt 1: 18).
St.
Matthew’s short account of the Savior’s birth emphasizes the divine origin of
Mary’s son, the name to be given to him, and St. Joseph’s silent obedience.
By
the power of the Holy Spirit, Mary’s able to conceive and give birth to the
Savior of the human race. St. Joseph’s
only part is to accept it as God’s way.
St.
Leo the Great—the 1st Pope Leo, who guided the Church in the middle of the 5th
century—teaches us, “Thru the same Spirit by whom Christ was conceived and
brought forth, we too might be born in a spiritual birth.”[1] The Holy Spirit brought divinity to Mary’s womb;
when that same Spirit comes upon us in Baptism, we’re given a share of divine
life, a share that’s deepened in the Holy Eucharist and will culminate in union
with God in eternity.
Joseph
is instructed to name the child Jesus—Yeshua, which means “YHWH saves.” Joseph does so. By bestowing a name, Joseph legally accepts
the child as his son even tho he’s not Jesus’ biological father. That’s why we call St. Joseph the foster
father of Jesus. At the same time,
Joseph, whom the angel addressed as “son of David” (1:20), i.e., a direct
descendant of King David, is connecting Jesus to David’s family. Jesus, too, becomes a son of David. We hear him addressed thus many times in the
gospels.
Jesus’/Yeshua’s
purpose in this mystery of the incarnation is salvation—salvation not from the
trials of life, not from economic or political oppressions or even from
sickness, but from sin. In his book on
the birth of Jesus, Pope Benedict XVI discusses this. He writes:
“Man is a relational being. If
his first, fundamental relationship is disturbed—his relationship with God—then
nothing else can truly be in order. This
is where the priority lies in Jesus’ message and ministry: before all else, he wants to point man toward
the essence of his malady, and to show him—if you are not healed there,
then however many good things you may find, you are not truly healed. … the explanation of Jesus’ name that was
offered to Joseph in this dream already contains a fundamental clarification of
how man’s salvation has to be understood….”[2]
Sin
is the one thing that un-divinizes us, the one thing that can separate us from
God and from the destiny God intends.
When God created humans, he created them in his own image (Gen 1:27). Images of himself is what God created us to be. That’s what Yeshua, “YHWH saves,” enters our
world to do.
In
his dream, St. Joseph received 2 commands from God. He was to take Mary, pregnant as she was, as
his wife and he was to give the child to be born a specific name. (No consulting name lists, no arguing over which
relative to name him after.)
Now,
as you know, there are many people who talk a good game, as they say. There are many people who talk the talk but
don’t walk the walk. In the 1st reading,
King Ahaz sounds pious; he’s already determined to do what he wants and refuses
to listen to the prophet (Is 7:10-14). Christ
chastised some of his listeners for not acting on his words or for not
carrying out God’s laws despite their professed piety.
St.
Matthew doesn’t record anything St. Joseph said, neither here nor later in his
gospel. Nor does St. Luke. Sometimes he’s called “Joseph the
Silent.” But silent Joseph is a man of
action. He promptly obeys God’s 2
commands as well as those that come later, without question and perhaps not
fully understanding them. So he fulfills
the vocation to which God has called him.
We
believe that Jesus is the Son of God in human flesh. We believe that he’s our Savior. We still have to act—silently or otherwise—on
what we hear, on what Jesus teaches us in the Scriptures and thru his Church. Apropos of what Jesus teaches us thru the
Church, I’m dumbfounded repeatedly by how many Catholics, including some
prominent ones, blow off what the Church teaches about the sacredness of human
life, e.g. on abortion, assisted suicide, and capital punishment; about
marriage and sexuality; and about the human dignity of immigrants and the right
of people to safety for themselves and their families.
Jesus
is salvation only for those who come to him and put his words into action, as
St. Joseph did so well.
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