The Quiet Man

This was the title of the film version of one of  Maurice West's books long ago.  It was one of those wonderful stories  where there is a strong, silent hero and a beautiful red-haired heroine who are of course at cross purposes until the end of the film.  I loved it.

 But I want to talk about another quiet man, perhaps the  quintessential strong, silent man who, nontheless,  is always there in the background, taking charge, shouldering the responsibility  he has been asked to assume without fuss and without any congratulatory messages appearing on his website, if he could have owned one, but of course it was too early for that.

He was, of course, the son of Jesse, called Joseph. Joseph bar Jesse is more familiarly known to us as Joseph, the husband of Mary of Nazareth, and the foster father of Jesus, Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, Son of the Eternal, immutable, transcendent God who created the world out of nothing, the one who is the arbiter of our destiny, and the judge of our world. We could go on....

Joseph was responsible for the well-being of the Messiah.  He was charged with the responsibility of providing for his needs, teaching him, with Mary of course, his prayers, and training him in his own trade of carpenter, seeing that he went to school and presumably kept out of trouble!  Well, not through Jesus himself of course, but through the envy and jealousy of others.  That would have hurt Joseph. But he just got on with what he was asked to do, remaining always in the background, but always there for support, advice or some father/son activity. He must have been a lovely father.

 

It was Joseph who was awakened in the night to pull up sticks and take Mary and the child into a far country to get away from the vengeance of the blood-thirsty and ambitious Herod.  It was Joseph who looked back fearfully as he heard the clang of the soldier's harnesses and the screams of babies and their poor mothers as the children of Judea were snatched from their cradles and murdered because of his foster son.

It was  terrifying for him, as he fought to protect the child and his young wife. He must have felt terrible. Knowing that, had Jesus not been there, living under the nose of the tetrarch Herod, this massacre would never have taken place.  Judah's cradles would have been full, and his family would have been safe along with all the young families around him. It was a hard burden to bear, especially as he had to live virtually as a migrant worker, a refugee in a foreign land for some years, getting work where he could, mastering a strange language, learning to live among unbelievers and often hostile people.  We don't know how he felt, but we can imagine it.  There are many parallels today when people have to flee their homes in terror from some despot or other.  We see it frequently on our television screens.  It is a constant tragedy that families are uprooted and terrorised.  Joseph knew their terror, and he is the one who will help them now.

So the quiet man of Nazareth saw the child Jesus grow into a handsome, sunburnt man who went about doing good.  We don't know when Joseph died, but we know that he had a formulative influence on the growing Jesus.  What a wonderful vocation! I love to think of him teaching Jesus the skills of a carpenter.  It must have been such a joy to him. Do you know this poem about Jesus being brought up with wood, and the irony of his death on a wooden cross?  It is worth thinking about as the 19th March nears, the feast of Joseph, now the patron of the universal Church and help of all those who have to leave their homeland.  Here is the poem:

He who grew up with wood around

ran with infant feet upon sawdust ground.

Who in childhood played with wooden toys

made by a caring father,

yet with youthful hand learned to whittle wood,

shaping pieces to his own command.

What dreadful irony decreed that wood should be

his instrument of death, and could it be

that Joseph once embraced that traitor tree?

Did splinters stab his arms when outstretched

for the nailing of his palms?

Or, did familiarity carve comfort even then

evoking honest, kindly men, ladies

or the mother's chair and a working carpenter?  

(Anon.)

It was a working carpenter, a quiet man, who first shaped those baby hands to appreciate the feel and tension of the wood.  It was the quiet man's influence that remained, along with the love of his mother, at the end.

A happy feast of St. Joseph to everybody!!