Filed under: Adoption, Advent, Biblical Reflections, Evangelium Vitae, Unborn Jesus
Tis the Season of ‘The Gospel of Life’
The Dream of St. Joseph (with unborn Christ Child) by Francisco Rizi (1608-1685)
My mother was betrothed to Joseph the carpenter, but he was unsure of what to do about me. Here is a picture of him sleeping and an angel of the Lord explaining everything to him in a dream. You can see my mother and I in the background. Joseph awoke from the dream and adopted me while I was still an unborn baby! (Mt 1:18-25)
Meditation
In Joseph’s midnight angelic revelation John Paul II sees Joseph’s “personal Annunciation” and the moment of his “Divine election….His place in the history of salvation is defined”. The Pope, continuing his observations, points out that the response of Joseph was exemplary: “’When Joseph woke from sleep ‑ we read in Matthew ‑ he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him’ (Mt 1:24). In these few words there is everything. The whole description of Joseph’s life and the full characteristic of his holiness: ‘He did’. Joseph, the one we know from the Gospel, is a man of action.”
Pope John Paul II, General Audience, March 19, 1980
“In these days of Advent, the liturgy invites us to contemplate in a special way the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph, who lived with a unique intensity the time of waiting and preparation for the birth of Jesus. Today, I want to direct our gaze toward the figure of St. Joseph… The one who gives the most importance to the adoptive father of Jesus is the Evangelist Matthew, emphasizing that thanks to him, the Child was legally introduced into the lineage of David fulfilling the Scriptures, in which the Messiah was prophesied as the ’son of David’.”
Pope Benedict, Angelus address, December 18, 2005
It pleased God to bring the beauty of human adoption into the heart of the Incarnation mystery. Adoption is a noble institution and has been a major theme of the Pro-Life message, but it was God’s idea and He relayed it to us. So we can find here another experience of solidarity, that is, a solidarity between God the Father and adoptive parents – His blessing upon their commitment to embrace a little one and, like Joseph, raise the child to the best of their abilities to fullness of life.
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