Our tainted nature’s solitary boast - William Wordsworth

This is the third line of The Ecclesiastical Poems written by Wordsworth in the early 1820’s. Although not known as a very religious man, Wordsworth wrote several religious poems in which he speaks of his emotion when looking at the world around him, which reminded him of a hidden deity whose hand was upon everything and who was behind the beauty and the life of our planet.  He was, of course, a worshipper of nature; he almost gives the impression in his poems of being pantheistic at times, but he has a genuine respect for Mary as a woman to be admired for her faith and her unique position as the one sinless creature in a world darkened by selfishness, greed and idolatry.

 

In the anticipation of the feast of the Annunciation on the 25^th March, we too reach out in love and in joy to her whose courageous “yes” brought Christ to our world as one of us and, in doing that, opened the way to salvation, to hope and to blessedness. When we remember that she was only a young teenager at the time, we can only think of her great trust in God, and her courage in facing an unknown future. As a young woman from a small, isolated village, she knew what would happen to her when her neighbours realised that she was pregnant before she married Joseph. She understood the pain of knowing that they could throw her out of the village, or even have her stoned to death.

For Joseph, it must have been a terrible time of shock and consternation. He would have to make the decision to deal with the situation as the law allowed.  He loved Mary and did not understand what had happened.  He must, at first, have thought that she had been unfaithful to him. What else could he think?

We have the benefit of hindsight, and we know what happened – the salutation of the angel, the “yes” of Mary which changed human history for all time, the embrace of the Holy Spirit which brought life to Mary’s youthful womb, the wonderful peace and joy that filled her whole being as a tiny, pulsating embryo within her  -  the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob – took up its earthly existence. It was the “still point of the turning world”, the moment when, for the first time, Heaven and earth were joined together in the flesh of a young girl from Nazareth, that most despised of villages. The time when the hearts of Jesus and Mary were joined together in a union that was never to be broken. A time of reprieve for us, of hope for every son and daughter of Eve, of freedom and saving grace for the whole of humanity and of the vast reaches of the created world. Its repercussions are still being felt, and will continue to do so for all time.

As you know, March 25^th is our special feast, celebrating as it does the birth of God’s greatest gift to us – his Son.  As Mary brought Christ to our world, so we perpetuate the Incarnation event by carrying Jesus spiritually to all those in need, all those who long for him, yet still sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

When we celebrate this feast, let us remember those who are living lives of pain and misery, those who don’t yet know Jesus or experience his great love, those who are ignored and given no part in other people’s lives; those who are lonely, bereaved or without hope.  Jesus came to our world to show us how much we are loved.  He came to give us dignity and worth, to make us feel good about being human. 

We can celebrate too by remembering to respect the dignity of others, especially those who are handicapped, old, vulnerable or poor. That way we can thank God and his Mother in the best way possible, by showing how much we appreciate the gift of the Incarnation.

Have a lovely feast. We will remember you all in our prayers.

 

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!!