Mary's Abode in the Temple—Her Marriage with Joseph Decreed in Heaven

Mary passed eleven years in the sacred retirement of the Temple, that she might, although all unknown to herself, acquire the necessary dispositions and have a fitting preparation to become the Mother of God, even as Joseph hid himself in the obscurity of a poor workshop to practice for many years the most excellent and most heroic virtues, that he might become like to Mary and worthy to be her spouse. Here, inwardly illuminated and guided by the Spirit of God, far more than by the instructions of her teachers, Mary rose to the loftiest height of perfection which a human creature can attain. Here, as Joseph had also done, she consecrated her virginity to God by a perpetual vow, conditional, however, on His good pleasure.¹ Hence, in accordance with the testimony of the ancient Fathers, the Angelic Doctor says that the Blessed Virgin stood, as it were, on the confines between the Old and the New Law; so that her vow was akin to the New Law in that it was a consecration of her virginity to God, and it savored of the Old Law in that it was made conditionally. To make an absolute vow of perpetual virginity would have been, so to say, to go beyond the spirit of the Mosaic Law, which favored, if it did not prescribe, matrimony; wherefore St. Bernard, speaking of Mary’s vow, says that in making it she transcended the precepts of the Mosaic Law. But the condition which Mary prudently appended in no way diminished the value or weakened the strength of her vow; on the contrary, it embellished and enhanced it by the merit of obedience. From which we gather that, if virginity under the New Law ranks as one of the first and choicest virtues, it was certainly not the lowest under the Old Law. There it occupied, it is true, but a temporary place, being destined to be soon followed by the virtues of the married state, but it was not without its honor and its prerogatives. Holy Scripture alludes to it as to a privileged state, dear to God, who took pleasure in the prayers of chaste youths and pure young maidens, and who predestinated a virgin to be the Mother of His Only-Begotten Son, and the Redeemer of the human race. “When the seers of Juda,” says Orsini,² “unfolded to the elect but oft chastised people the prophetic picture of their miseries or their victories, they always introduced in it a virgin, either smiling or in tears, to personify provinces and cities. In the wars of extermination, in which the broadsword of the Hebrews cut down the women, children, and old men of Moab, the virgins were spared; and the high-priest, who was forbidden by a severe law to pay funeral honors even to the prince of his people, might assist without being defiled at the funeral of his sister if she had died a virgin.³ The virgins took part in the ceremonies of the Hebrew worship before that worship had a temple. Dancing choirs of young women, transplanted from Egypt into the desert, continued a long time, and ceased only when the ark was lost and the first Temple was destroyed.⁴ The virgins of Silo, who seem to have been in the time of the Judges more especially consecrated to the service of the Lord than the other daughters of Israel, were dancing to the song of canticles and the sound of harps, at a short distance from the holy place, during a feast of the Lord, when the sons of Benjamin carried them off.”⁵ “If the Jewish people,” says P. Monsabré,⁶ “mindful and proud of the oracles which promised them a Liberator born of their own race, esteemed marriage above all other states and regarded sterility as an opprobrium, they yet demanded continence from their priests at the periods when their sacred functions placed them in relation with God. They admired the holy reserve which (so to say) buried women in their widowhood. ‘Because thou hast loved chastity,’ said the high-priest, Joachim, to Judith, ‘and after thy husband hast not known any other, therefore also the hand of the Lord hath strengthened thee, and therefore thou shalt be blessed for ever.’⁷ The pagans themselves recognized the beauty and greatness of a state which protested against the corruption of their manners. They sounded its praises by the mouths of their poets and their orators; they called celibacy and virginity to the service of their gods and their goddesses; Isis, Minerva, Ceres, and Vesta were surrounded by virgins. Only virgins were deemed worthy of guarding the sacred fire and of receiving the oracles of heaven; the virgins were reverend and holy; they merited the greatest honor; the fasces of the Lictors bowed before them; the first places were reserved for them at all the feasts where the majesty of the senate and people of Rome was displayed; and it was not thought too cruel to bury them alive when they betrayed their vows.”

But to proceed: Mary did not give herself exclusively to the contemplative life; she also exercised herself in the active life; thus teaching thereby how in every state the two may be united. St. Epiphanius, St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, and St. Bonaventura, all describe this most holy child as occupied in the Temple in domestic work. Her hands plied the needle, the distaff, and the spindle, in labor for the poor, as well as for the decoration of God’s House and making vestments for the priests. St. Epiphanius also tells us that the Blessed Virgin excelled all her companions in embroidery and in the art of working in wool, fine linen, and gold. The cedar spindles which she used were, we are told, preserved as a pious memorial in the Church at Jerusalem. Amongst all these occupations she found time to study and meditate profoundly the Sacred Scriptures, of which the Fathers attribute to her a consummate understanding. Her wonderful intellect, unrelaxing application, and the supernatural science infused by God had, indeed, already made her a true Seat of Wisdom. Marvelous things are related of this predestined child, of which the echoes have reached us through tradition: how she would rise alone to pray at midnight; how she would sometimes prolong her fasts for three days, and how angels would bring her fruits from Paradise;⁸ how she enjoyed constant union with God, and was favored with the sublimest visions. And well may this have been so, since nothing which has been liberally bestowed upon the saints can have been wanting in the case of her who was to be the august Mother of God, the Queen of Angels and of Saints.

Thus was being prepared the accomplishment of the Divine Will, which had decreed to unite Mary and Joseph in marriage. Wonderful indeed are the ways of God! Who would have believed that Joseph, who had resolved to keep the Evangelical counsels, before the Son of God had appeared on earth to proclaim them, should bind himself with the ties of matrimony? This holy man’s purity of mind and body seemed to raise him to a height far superior to the obligations of that state; and, if this be true of Joseph, what shall we say of our Sovereign Lady, Mary, the most perfect of all creatures, exalted to so sublime a height that in God’s whole universe there was none equal to her? If Joseph did not seem created for the married state, still less could Mary; for, if the eminent virtue of this illustrious son of David was too perfect for a condition of life in itself not the most perfect, must not the surpassing sanctity of Mary have placed her at a far greater distance from it? Yet this union had been decreed in the counsels of the Three Adorable Persons of the Ever-Blessed Trinity. The devout Andrew, Bishop of Crete, calls the Blessed Virgin a very world in herself, who within the narrow compass of her bosom enclosed Him whom the whole universe cannot contain.⁹ Would it, then, be possible that God should take such particular care of all His creation as to set angels over the stars and the elements, to regulate their movements, their powers, and their influences, and be indifferent as respected the husband to whom He designed to confide the guardianship of this marvelous world, which alone exceeded in value thousands of worlds?

But it is not sufficient to believe that the Most Holy Trinity approved and ratified this marriage. If princesses, daughters of earthly monarchs, cannot contract an alliance without the consent of the sovereign, in order to obviate any union derogatory to their royal blood, much more was this needful in the case of Mary. She was, not only the daughter of the royal house of David, but a princess of a superior order, nay, in some sort, a divine order; for, though her origin was not divine, the blood in her veins was at least sufficiently pure to be converted into that of the God-Man. From all eternity Mary had been chosen by the Ever-Blessed Trinity for this incomparable dignity, and, when the fullness of time was come, had been fitted and prepared miraculously for it, and rendered as worthy of it as was possible for a pure creature to be. If, then, it entered into the Divine counsels to give her an earthly spouse for her protector, Joseph, assuredly, must have been also the special choice of the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and, being so, it would not be conceivable that he should not have been rendered as worthy of this exalted honor as it was possible for him to be. Bernardine de Bustis teaches that, this marriage having been the most perfect ever contracted, the Blessed Trinity, which had decreed it before the world was, had also ordained that there should be between the two admirable contracting parties a more adequate similarity than in any who have entered into this state of life;¹⁰ and this similarity between Joseph and Mary consisted, not only in externals and in the natural affections and inclinations, but more particularly in supernatural gifts. Joseph, therefore, was enriched with heavenly graces that he might resemble his blessed spouse, and be qualified to combine with her in the care and education of the Savior of the world.

It is the common opinion of Doctors of the Church that, when the Blessed Trinity gave our saint as spouse to Mary, no other man could have been found so like to her. Both were in so high a grade of perfection that even as there would have been a great and unsuitable disproportion between the Virgin and any other spouse, so also would there have been a signal inequality between Joseph and any other consort who might have been allotted to him. St. Bernardine of Siena is of opinion that there never were two spouses so like to each other as were Mary and Joseph.¹¹ Not that any one pretends to affirm that an entire equality subsisted between them. Such an assertion would be both false and impious. Similarity and conformity do not, and could not, in this case imply equality. Their equality consisted in this, that Joseph was so exceedingly like to Mary that he had none like to him among men. Inferior to the Blessed Virgin alone, he was superior to all else besides. In that superiority, therefore, they were partners. What a singular glory was this, to be so like to the Blessed Virgin as to possess in a great measure common privileges with her, and to have a love for God of the same character as her own! And, in effect, our Lady, as a learned interpreter observes, places no difference between the vehement sorrow and anxiety she experienced at the loss of her Son, and the sorrow, anxiety, and solicitude of her husband: “Behold Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing”.¹² She thus gives us the liberty to compare the love which they both had for Jesus, and to hold as a consequence that Joseph was so similar to her that there was no one else who could enter into comparison with him.

Certainly we need no greater proof of the eminent sanctity of Joseph than is implied in the choice made of him by God to be the husband of Mary. We have only to look at her to know what he must have been. In the first marriage which was ever contracted, that of our first parents, God destined the man to be the model of the woman: “Let us make him a help like unto himself”;¹³ but in the most holy of all marriages, that of Mary and Joseph, the wife was chosen as the model of her spouse; and thus the elevation of Mary furnishes us with a standard for conceiving how high must have been that of Joseph. The Blessed Trinity, in determining to give to Mary this companion, determined also that he should be a wondrous copy of her perfections and endowed with her incomparable qualities, while for his greater honor It decreed that he himself should meritoriously cooperate in the acquisition of them. Jacob served only fourteen years to win the beautiful Rachel, but Joseph during his whole life had been preparing for the dignity of spouse to the Queen of Angels. This Sovereign Lady, indeed, was of incomparably greater worth than was Laban’s fair daughter, and a seraph after many centuries of devoted service might have deemed himself rich if he had obtained one word of recognition or one favorable glance from Mary. How great, then, was the honor which the Blessed Trinity conferred on Joseph!

This marriage having been decreed in the secret counsels of the Triune God, it was, moreover, to receive on earth the highest possible sanction by becoming matter of deliberation and determination on the part of the heads of the Jewish Church, the chief priests and doctors of the law, as we shall presently see.