We are told that Joseph had such complete command of all his senses that they never participated in or betrayed the movements of his inward self, but that on all occasions he behaved with the same unvarying equanimity. Accordingly, he concealed from Mary the trouble which he was enduring, but she was interiorly cognizant of it, and, knowing well his reverential spirit, she knew also that he was meditating some step which would be most painful to her. Why, then, does she not reveal her secret to him? Why does she not reassure and tranquilize his mind? Should she delay much longer, she may be too late. Tomorrow, before the dawn of day, Joseph will have crossed the threshold of his home, and gone forth a wanderer on the face of the earth. What, then, is the Holy Virgin doing? She is silent. She knows the faith of Joseph, his humility, his perplexity, his confusion, and it pains her acutely that she cannot console him; yet she perseveres in her silence, because she does not think herself authorized to speak, and because she shrinks from uttering her own praises. She remembers that the angel did not give her permission to divulge the mystery. The secret of God must be kept, and if He should be pleased to make it known, He will Himself reveal it to Joseph, as He did to Elizabeth and to the unborn infant, John. She is silent, therefore, and waits. She knows how to wait; not like Saul, who lost a kingdom and God’s favor because he could not wait. Patience is an attribute of holy souls. Saul lacked it. “Forced by necessity,” he said, “I offered the holocaust.”1 The Queen of Saints knows of no necessity save that which constrains her to wait on God. In her patience she possesses her soul, but she prays, and that in great anguish of spirit, and fervently implores her Divine Son, whom she bears in her bosom, speedily to free Joseph from so great suffering, to enlighten him, and send him counsel and comfort in his trial.
Mary’s prayer was quickly heard and granted, for the interpreters of Holy Writ consider that Joseph was left but a short time in this state of perturbation; indeed, according to an ancient Eastern legend, not a single night was allowed to pass before he was delivered from it, an opinion which the wording of the text may be almost said to favor: “But while he thought on these things, behold the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in his sleep, saying, ’Joseph, son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son; and thou shalt call His name Jesus: for He shall save His people from their sins”.2 This is the first time that we hear of an angel appearing to Joseph, but it does not follow that he had never previously received a heavenly visit. It does not appear to have excited any wonder in him, as in one not conversant with angelic communications, for he immediately recognized the messenger who addressed him as being sent by God, although he spoke to him only in his sleep. Hence we may form a high estimate of Joseph’s faith, to whom so little sufficed to make him believe. The angel was, doubtless, Gabriel, who had already appeared to Mary, and he knew how to convey to the mind of Joseph such certainty of his mission as to leave no room for doubt. But this implies a corresponding state of mind in Joseph, a holy preparation of soul which rendered him alive to spiritual influences, for God never forces conviction upon any one; it implies that Joseph was a discerner of spirits, and it may even be said a prophet, for in the Book of Numbers the Lord said: “If there be among you a prophet of the Lord, I will appear to him in a vision, or I will speak to him in a dream”.3 It will be observed, too, that the angel called him by his name, Joseph. Blessed are those whose names are known to God and are written in the Book of Life. And the angel not only called him by his name, but added, “Son of David,” to remind him of the promises sworn by God to that king and now fulfilled in his virgin spouse.
He then proceeds to tranquilize his mind, saying, “Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost”; that is, fear not to remain with Mary thy wife, and to consider and accept her as such. This is the true sense of the angel’s words, and not, as some have supposed, that he commanded Joseph to take Mary to wife, as if he were not already bound in marriage to her, abiding as he was in the same house with her, and called her husband, as Mary was also called his wife, by the Evangelist himself. “The word of the angel,” says Benedict XIV., “by which he bade him not to fear to take unto him Mary for his wife is a Hebrew mode of expression, which does not signify the commencement of an act, but the continuation of an act already begun. The meaning of his mandate is this: ‘Retain and keep the wife you have taken, and do not forsake her’; and such is the interpretation of those who are adepts in the Hebrew idiom.”4 The angel bids him remain with Mary, and not fear to do so, albeit he is now infallibly informed that she has conceived of the Holy Ghost; and he is to remain with her precisely because he is designed by God to be the tutor and guardian of both herself and her Divine Son. Joseph, with all a father’s rights, without having had any part in His conception, was to give Him the name of Jesus: “And thou shalt call His name Jesus,” that is, Savior; for Jesus, by His Passion and Death, was to save the human race from eternal perdition: “He shall save His people from their sins”. We see how the angel’s words entirely coincide with the view here presented of the cause of Joseph’s perturbation and the motives urging him to his proposed flight. He does not bid him discard his suspicions, for Joseph had none, but abide without fear with the Divine Mother as his wife, and assume the legitimate rights and position of a father; for the imposing of the name was the father’s special office. The angel says not, “His name shall be called Jesus,” but “Thou shalt call His name Jesus”: words which are most significant as regards the office and dignity of Joseph.
The verses which follow seem to be plainly a commentary of the Evangelist himself: “Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which the Lord spoke by the prophet, saying: Behold a virgin shall be with child, and bring forth a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which, being interpreted, is God-with-us”.5 But, however this may be, certain it is that the angel’s message entirely satisfied Joseph and set his mind at rest. The infallible assurance now given to him of the sublime dignity of Mary doubtless increased in his heart a thousand-fold his faith and his reverence, but the command coupled with it had extinguished every importunate idea of flight and separation. On awaking from sleep the thought that he was dwelling under the same roof with God Himself must have absorbed every faculty of his soul, and we may imagine that he straightway prostrated himself on the ground in deepest adoration. He recalls the oracles of the prophets; and the glories, the humiliations, and the sufferings of the Redeemer unfold themselves before him. He reflects how he is to act as father to the Son of God, and the weight of so much dignity well-nigh overpowers him. He reflects how he is spouse to the Mother of the long-promised Messias, and he knows not how he can duly correspond to what is required of him, and worthily bear himself under the tremendous responsibilities laid upon him.
No doubt but Mary was immediately apprised how Joseph had been enlightened by the angel concerning the high mystery which had been wrought within her, and how the overwhelming respect and awe which had seized upon him prevented him from so much as raising his face from the earth. With the morning light she would speedily seek her holy spouse, in order gently to console him, and, kneeling down, would invite him to adore with her the Majesty of God present with them, and beg the Lord to make known to them His holy will in all things. Perhaps she again repeated the inspired canticle of the Magnificat, with which she had replied to Elizabeth’s salutation; and, when she arrived at that verse which says how God has cast down the proud and exalted the humble, Joseph, feeling that these words applied to him as well as to Mary, will have been moved to shed tears of profound self-abasement and gratitude, not knowing how sufficiently to return thanks to God who had regarded his lowliness also. The more, indeed, we reflect upon these mysteries, dwell upon them and penetrate them by meditation, the more we shall be struck with the close analogy between Mary’s high election and that of Joseph. He, too, had his trial and probation, and on his behavior under them, on his correspondence with grace, and his free consent, seemed to depend the fulfillment of the divine decree appointing him the foster-father of Jesus and investing him with a paternity which for its sublimity and specially high characteristics has never had its parallel on earth.
We can readily imagine that there would be a renewed contest, so to say, the only possible one, between these holy spouses as to which was to render submission and obedience to the other, for henceforward Joseph felt that, as the Mother of God, he could only regard and treat her as his sovereign and empress. But Mary, we know, cannot have allowed of any reversal of their natural relationship, but must have implored him to continue to regard her, not only as his spouse, but as his handmaid in all things, telling him that she should always render to him the homage and obedience which was his due, as a father and guide, her guardian and the protector of her virginity, as God had appointed. Thus would they together join in serving Jesus and cooperating in the great work He had come upon earth to accomplish. St. Bridget tells us in her Revelations how the Blessed Virgin assured her that, when Joseph beheld her with child by the operation of the Holy Ghost, he feared exceedingly, suspecting no evil of her, but, remembering the words of the prophet which foretold how the Son of God would be born of a virgin, reputed himself unworthy to serve such a mother, until the angel in sleep bade him not to fear, but to minister to her with charity. And our Lady added: “From that moment Joseph never ceased to serve me as his sovereign, and I humbled myself to the lowest offices to show him my submission”.
This behavior of Joseph towards the august Mother of God was, we must be sure, quite compatible with his filling the position in the Holy Family of its head, which he was bidden and bound to assume, even as it was compatible with what is far more amazing still, his acceptance and, subsequently, his exercise of the superiority which, as His reputed father, was conferred upon him over the Son of God Himself, who, though the Lord of all, was more perfectly subject to Joseph than the most dutiful of sons ever was to his parent.