Families look at the "typical" picture that is there
Holy Family, to its supernatural love, yet beautiful, complete, according to nature.
CWhat more humble, simpler, more silent, more hidden thing could the Gospel offer us to place next to Mary and Jesus? The figure of Joseph is precisely outlined in the traits of modesty, the most popular, the most common, the most - one would say, using the yardstick of human values - insignificant, since we do not find any aspect in him that can give us reason for his real greatness and of the extraordinary mission that Providence entrusted to him, and which rightly forms the theme of many considerations, indeed of many panegyrics in honor of Saint Joseph.
We honor Saint Joseph, "the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus, called Christ, was born" (Mt 1:16). Today we will honor him as the one whom God chose to give to the Word of God, who becomes man, the nest, the historical genealogy, the house, the social environment, the profession, the guardian, the kinship, in a word, the family, this primary cell of society, community of love, freely constituted, indivisible, exclusive, perpetual, through which man and woman reveal themselves to be mutually complementary and destined to transmit the natural and divine gift of life to other human beings , their children. Jesus, Son of God, had his own human family, so he appeared and was both the Son of man; and with this choice of his he ratified, canonized, sanctified this common institute of ours which generates human existence, above which our prayer and our meditation places today the pious, silent, exemplary figure of Saint Joseph.
Truly we must immediately make a fundamental observation about this holy character, destined to act as the legal, not natural, father of Jesus, whose human generation occurred in a very singular, prodigious way, by the work of the Holy Spirit, in the womb of Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, Jesus her true son, and only officially, as he was believed (Lk 3, 33; Mk 6, 3; Mt 13, 55), "son of the blacksmith", Joseph. Here his personal story would open up to our consideration, his sentimental drama, his "novel", which bordered on the collapse of his love, who with privileged intuition had chosen Mary, the "full of grace", that is, the most beautiful , the most lovable of all women, as his future bride, when he learned that she was no longer his; she was about to become a mother; and he, who was a good man, "just" as the Gospel says, capable of sacrificing his love to the unknown fate of his fiancée, thought of leaving her without making a fuss, sacrificing what he held most dear in life, his love for the incomparable Maiden.
But Giuseppe, although a humble craftsman, was also privileged; he had the charisma of revelatory dreams; and one, the first recorded in the Gospel, was this: «Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to welcome Mary as your consort, since what was born in her is the work of the Holy Spirit. He will give birth to a son, and you will call his name Jesus; for he will save his people from their sins" (Mt 1, 20-21); that is, he will be the Savior, he will be the Messiah, "the Emmanuel, which means God with us" (ibid. 23). Joseph obeyed: happy, and at the same time generous in the human sacrifice that was asked of him. He will be the father of the unborn child "non carne, sed caritate", writes Saint Augustine (Serm. 52, 20; PL 38, 351); husband, guardian, witness of the immaculate virginity and at the same time of the divine motherhood of Mary. Unique, miraculous situation, which highlights the personal sanctity not only of the Madonna, but also that of her modest but sublime husband, Joseph, the saint who the Church presents, even during the Lenten internship, to our festive veneration . And here we are then before the "holy Family"!
Yes, dear, dear Christian families, summoned by us today to this celebration, happy to see that many pilgrims and faithful join you. Yes, we must express with new fervor, with a new conscience our worship of this picture that the Gospel places before us: Joseph, with Mary, and Jesus, child, child, young man with them. The picture is typical. Every family can be reflected there. Domestic love, the most complete, the most beautiful according to nature, radiates from the humble evangelical scene, and immediately sheds itself in a new and dazzling light: love acquires supernatural splendor. The scene transforms: Christ has the upper hand; the human figures who are close to him take on the representation of the new humanity, the Church. Christ is the Bridegroom; The bride is the Church; the picture of time opens onto the mystery of beyond time; the history of the world becomes apocalyptic, eschatological; Blessed are those who can already glimpse the life-giving light; the present life is transfigured into the future and eternal one: our home, our family will become paradise.
Dear children, listen to us. Embracing the Christian life as a program today becomes a powerful exercise. The traditional habit of our homes, tidy, simple and austere, good and happy, no longer stands on its own. Public customs, the guardian of domestic and social virtues, are in the process of changing and, in certain aspects, in the process of dissolving. Legality is not always sufficient for the needs of morality. The family is questioned in its fundamental laws: unity, exclusivity, perpetuity. It's your turn, Christian spouses; to you, families blessed by the sacramental charism; to you, faithful of a religion which has its highest and most sacred, most generous and happiest expression in love, in true evangelical love, to you to rediscover your vocation and your fortune; it is up to you to preserve the incomparably human and spontaneously religious character of the Christian family; it is up to you to regenerate in your children and in society the sense of the spirit that raises the flesh to its level. May Saint Joseph teach you how. Today we will invoke him together for this purpose.
Homily on the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, 19 March 1975.