Not out of suspicion, but out of humility, Joseph wants to send away his pregnant bride, but the angel shows him the mystery present in Mary. He will have the task of "putative" father, because there is only one true Father, the one in heaven

of Msgr. Silvano Macchi

The second biblical passage that I take into consideration, in reference to the "mysteries" of the life of Saint Joseph, is the very famous, delicate and widely illustrated page of the announcement to Joseph (Mt 1, 18-25), where it is said of Mary that she is pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit (it is the Spirit who gives life and is its source!). However, Mary is betrothed to Joseph and in fact he is already Mary's husband; all that was missing was cohabitation and the sanctification of marriage, the wedding.

We don't know exactly how Joseph came to know about Mary's interesting state (and there has never been a "more interesting" one). It seems quite obvious to assume that Mary herself told him about the angel's announcement or that she was simply silent. (What do you mean when God comes into your life?).

However, Mary's testimony was enough for Joseph: he had no suspicions of infidelity. And here begins the drama, the test of Joseph who, having become aware of Mary's unexpected pregnancy, for a moment thought that their mutual engagement commitment, also from a legal point of view, could be dissolved with a letter of repudiation. However, Joseph, who is a just man, does not want to expose Mary to public judgment and therefore decides to secretly dissolve her marriage to her. Mary had been chosen by God himself for tasks that were too big, too superior to Joseph's suitability, too distant from the small story of their affection for him to remain beside her. Being just, he thought he had no right to Maria and that child: it was right to give up and retreat!

At this point Giuseppe, who is thinking and brooding alone - he is a very thoughtful and meditative man - how he should have behaved, what was the best way to silently escape from that mysterious story, without harming Mary with his presence and without harm her not even with his distance, the angel appears in a dream (the first of other dreams) and reveals to him his very high function in the history of salvation (Joseph will later be called, in the Christian tradition, "minister of salvation", to reiterate the its leading role). Joseph feels addressed by the angel as the son of David, and this too must have surprised him greatly. He knew well that he was the son of David, that is, his descendant, but he certainly did not think that the grandiose promise of the Messiah, made to his distant ancestor, could concern him personally; descendants of David were many, hundreds...

But the angel awakens Joseph from his thoughts and tells him: «Do not be afraid to take Mary, your bride, with you...». Joseph need not fear; the promise he made to take Mary with him remains hers, indeed he must take her with him immediately! What is generated in her is certainly the work of the Holy Spirit, not of her; and yet he himself will give the name to the child who will be born. «You (Joseph and with him all of us) do not have to generate or 'make' God (perhaps in your image and likeness!): this task belongs to Mary. You (and with him all of us) simply have to welcome him. You will call him Jesus, you will adopt him, you will educate him, you will give him an identity, you will make him a Davidic descendant in all respects, you will thus recognize him as the Savior of all." This in fact means Jesus: God saves, he is savior.

Joseph awoke from his sleep. The verb "he awoke" is the same as that of the Resurrection, as if to say: after the angel's announcement, Joseph rose again as a new man (the dream is a small death in depth psychology, even if in the Bible it has a different meaning ). Not only did he rise from that night's sleep, but he rose from the sleep of a lifetime. He recognized that the words of Scripture regarding David were not distant and unheard of words, but concerned him closely.

And he obeyed perfectly: he took Mary with him as his bride, brought her into his home, took care of her, then also and above all of the child. The awareness of the arcane greatness of that son and of the evident disproportion between the task entrusted to him and the consistency of his person certainly remained clear in him. At the same time, however, a certainty was affirmed in him: the Father of heaven, the true Father of that son, was close to his life and the life of his son.

In the Christian tradition, Joseph has been called "putative" and "adoptive" father, almost as if to say that common opinion believed him to be the father of Jesus, but in truth he was not. Was Joseph really only a putative father? In a certain sense it must be said that all fathers are putative: such in a manner of speaking, not in truth. The truth is that the true Father is only the one in heaven. So much so that the attention and faith of the fathers on earth must turn to him, so that they are not frightened by their superhuman and grandiose, but not impossible, task. They must not linger in the secret thought of how to escape the task and responsibility of being fathers as soon as possible. In this sense, Joseph's very singular destiny reveals the truth hidden in the experience of every father on earth. Like Joseph, they don't have to fear either, if they live their lives in justice, if they remain under the sign of obedience, trust and joy: the joy and joy of Joseph!