FORTY-FIRST SERMON
ON JOSEPH's CONFORMITY WITH THE WILL OF GOD.
Subject.
Joseph was always satisfied with the Lord and with His will: 1. In his life; 2. In his death. Preached on the feast of St. Joseph.
Text.
"Joseph, her husband, being a just man." (Matt 1:19)
Introduction.
A just man is one who stands well with God in his conscience, and is always in conformity with God and His will. For if I wish to know whether a line is straight or not, all I have to do is to take the rule and lay it along -the line; if the latter deflects from the rule in one way or the other it is not a straight line. A just man can always live satisfied with and rejoicing in the Lord, and he can die satisfied with and rejoicing in the Lord, as I have shown on a former occasion. My dear brethren, you have a perfect model of this conformity in him whom this day calls on us to honor, and whom our archdiocese has chosen as its special patron, the great St. Joseph.
Plan of Discourse.
Joseph was always satisfied with the Lord and with His will; there you have the whole subject of this sermon. Joseph was satisfied with the Lord during his life: the first point. Joseph was satisfied with the Lord in his death: the second point. Let us, too, thus live and die satisfied with the Lord: such shall be the moral
Obtain for us the grace to act up to it, holy St. Joseph, through Jesus and Mary, by the hands of the holy angels! To be resigned to the will of God, to be joyful and contented. in the Lord, to be ready and willing to submit to all His decrees when things are going according to our wishes, is indeed the praiseworthy virtue of the just man, and one that God Himself approved of in His servant Job, when the latter was still prosperous and had not yet tasted the bitterness of affliction. But, after all, it is not such a very wonderful matter to be always satisfied with one who has never contradicted us, but always looked on us with favor, greeted us with a smiling countenance, and endowed us with a bounteous hand. Moreover, it is one thing to offer one's self to bear a heavy burden which is not to be imposed for a considerable time, and another to feel the weight of it on one's shoulders, and yet bear it readily; in the one case the burden is felt only in the imagination and in the promptitude of the will; in the latter it actually weighs one down and makes itself felt in reality. What beautiful resolutions we sometimes make during prayer in time of spiritual consolation! Then, with the zealous Peter, we would wish to go to death for Christ; but when there is question of really suffering, of bearing some little cross or stroke of adversity for God's sake, what sour faces we make! Then it costs us trouble enough to follow Christ at a distance, with down cast hearts and sad demeanor, like Peter.
Perhaps, then, you wonder, my dear brethren, that I try to find out something in praise of St. Joseph from the fact that he acted as a great hero in being always satisfied and contented with the will of God. Why should he not have been? If ever a man in the world had cause for leading a joyous and contented life, it was Joseph. For what greater good fortune could he have expected than to be the foster-father and to be called the father of Jesus Christ, the Son of the eternal God? Than to have as his spouse that most blessed virgin whom the princes of heaven honor with the utmost reverence as their queen? The mere recollection of the name of Jesus fills St. Bernard with overwhelming joy: " Jesus, sweet to the memory, and giving true joy to the heart; but sweeter than honey and all sweetness is His sweet presence." What must then have been the joy of Joseph in always being in the presence of Jesus and Mary, holding to the one the relations of a father to his child, and to the other those of a most chaste spouse with his virginal bride? Wherever he turned his eyes, he saw one or other of them; if he sat at table, his companions were Jesus and Mary; if he was employed in his workshop, the divine Child was with him as his apprentice. Oh, who can imagine the consolation that filled the heart of Joseph with two such amiable companions! " Heaven, w says Gerson, "envied such inhabitants to the earth." And therefore Joseph had good reason to be satisfied with the Lord.
I acknowledge it, my dear brethren, but the same God who is wont to mingle joy and sorrow for His devout servants on earth did not wish to spare the foster-father of His Son, but gave him frequent opportunities of proving his virtue. I will say nothing now of the poor condition, lowly in the eyes of the world, in which Joseph lived, for before and after the birth of Christ he had to earn his bread by his labor, although he was descended from royal blood, and had as his ancestors great and mighty monarchs whom God Himself had placed on the throne. And it is no small matter for a man who has come down in the world to be satisfied with the divine will. There is nothing more humiliating to one of rich and noble descent than to be forced to live in poverty and lowliness; and I take as witnesses to the truth of this all who have had experience of it. And yet Joseph was content ed and happy in his poverty, because such was the will of God, even before he had the happiness of seeing the Saviour. He was satisfied as long as he could by his toil support himself, and after wards that God to whose service he had dedicated his whole life.
Was it not a hard trial for him, as the gospel of to-day tells us, fluctuating as he was between hope and fear, love and grief, to be compelled to think it necessary for him to put away Mary, his most beloved spouse? And yet, as St. Jerome, quoted by Cornelius a Lapide, says, he did not even entertain a wrong suspicion of the Blessed Virgin, but left the mystery which he could not understand, and himself, as well, in the hands of Providence, without a murmur, until the angel appeared to him and explained all. Was it not a hard and bitter thing for him, when the Bless ed Virgin was about to bring forth the Saviour, to arrive at Bethlehem in the depth of winter, and find all the inns of the place closed against him, so that he was obliged to find shelter in an abandoned stable, exposed to wind and weather, where there was neither chair nor bed, fire nor hearth, food nor comfort of any kind? Truly, the greater his love for the Blessed Virgin, the more intense his desire to behold the Son of God, the more violent and bitter must also have been his grief and anguish at seeing the poverty and destitution to which they were abandoned. But such was the will of God, and therefore Joseph was quite satisfied.
Was it not a hard and bitter thing, and therefore one that could not be accomplished without an heroic resignation on his part to the divine will, to have to fly into Egypt with Mary and her Child at the command of the angel? " Arise, said the angel to him, "and take the Child and His Mother, and fly into Egypt, and be there until I shall tell thee "? Truly, the command was a hard one! Let us consider the circumstances of it briefly. Arise, and fly; such was the order. When? at what time? In the middle of the night, for the angel appeared to him during his sleep, and that, too, in the depth of winter. Fly; with whom? With the Child and His Mother. Fly; whither? Into the unknown, wild, and far-off land of Egypt. Fly; how long were they to remain there? "Be there until I shall tell thee? And why? "For it will come to pass that Herod will seek the Child to destroy Him." And behold, Joseph starts off at once, without asking any questions, and without a moment's hesitation: "Who arose, and took the Child and His Mother by night, and retired . into Egypt.": Had he no good reason for objecting, and saying to the angel, as St. Chrysostom remarks: But why should I fly? Why should I go into that terrible land? "from my own country, into exile; from my friends, among strangers; from the chosen people of God, to idolaters; from the holy temple in Jerusalem, to the shrines of idols in Egypt?" where there is no one who knows us? no one whom we know? Who will provide us with the means of livelihood? Where shall we find a house to shelter us? Is there no nook or corner in Judea where the Child may be hidden with His own friends? Why should we have to go into such a remote, heathen land? And if we must go, at least let us wait till to-morrow, and have the daylight for our journey! Why should I depart in the dark night? The Child is young and small, the Mother weak and tender; I do not know the way; I have not a farthing of money for food; let us at all events make the preparations necessary for such a long and toilsome road. No! Joseph was ready at the least sign that God gave him by the angel: " Who arose and took the Child and His Mother by night, and retired into Egypt; " in the dark night, without provisions, ignorant of the way, and yet without any anxiety as to what should happen to him. He placed all his care in the hands of that God who had commanded him to set out. But, continues St. Chrysostom, if he refrained from asking questions about his own comforts, he might at least have made some pretext of considering the honor of the Saviour, and said: "Thou, dear angel, hast said that this Child will save His people; and now He cannot save Himself from danger, but we are obliged to take to flight? " What will the shepherds think who came here to adore Him? What will ail think who have heard that He is the Saviour of the world? Is that the great Son of God? they will say; and must He now meanly seek safety in flight, because He is unable to protect Himself from the attacks of a mortal man otherwise? Cannot He who called the three kings from the East to adore Him and do homage to Him as God cannot He win the heart of Herod, or, if the latter is quite hardened in his rage and presumption, at least avoid his attacks in some other manner than by taking flight so hastily? All that hear of it shall think themselves deceived, and be ashamed of having believed the Child to be the Messias. And if He must fly, why not allow us to go into the East, to those three kings, who will receive us with due honor, and before all their people acknowledge and adore the Child as God? But Joseph said nothing of the kind; it was enough for him to know the will of God. " He who has learned perfect obedience," says St. Gregory, "does not know how to criticise or ask questions;" he resigns himself completely to the will of God. It is not for him to ask: Why is this, or that? Why should I do so? Why at such an inconvenient time? It was a question of the kind that the hellish serpent suggested to the woman: " And he said to the woman: Why hath God commanded you, that you should not eat of every tree of paradise? " Par be such questioning from the obedient Joseph! far, therefore, from the just Joseph! Arise, and fly, said the angel. And he got up at once and fled; it was all one to him how he should find the way, how he should fare, how live in Egypt, how long he was to remain there; all this he left to the will and providence of God, who commanded him to set out; and with that will he was satisfied.
Nay, I may say that while he was in the cottage at Nazareth, after his return from Egypt, although he had the great comfort of living in the Holy Family, yet Joseph was never without secret sorrow and interior trials; for without doubt Our Lord, who foretold His passion and death to His disciples, must also have spoken of them to His mother and foster-father. How that revelation must have pained the heart of Joseph I leave you to judge, fathers and mothers, who know what it is to have even a suspicion of misfortune or calamity to your children. What bitter grief it must have caused him to see Jesus standing at his side, working and helping him at his trade, and to think, at the same time: Those hands shall one day be pierced with the nails; this foster-son of mine shall be fastened to the cross, and held up to the scorn and mockery of the world! Meanwhile he was satisfied with it all, since such was the will of the heavenly Father.
O holy St. Joseph, what a beautiful example thou hast left to posterity! But how it puts to shame my inordinate anxiety, trouble, disquiet, fear, impatience, chagrin, and annoyance when any contradiction happens to me! How it puts to shame my little confidence in the providence of God when any evil threatens; my dissatisfaction with the divine will when the evil actually happens! Ah, imprint deeply on my heart and the hearts of all present this day the words: Such is the will of God; so that we may never forget them, and may find encouragement and contentment in them in all the accidents of life. Truly, my dear brethren, that is the foundation of all contentment in a man as long as he lives on this earth; to know, namely, that everything, sin alone excepted, that happens in this world is according to the decree of the almighty God. " Whatever hap pens against your will," says St. Augustine, "you must know does not happen unless according to the will of God, the providence of God, the command of God, the laws of God; " and in deed it is for your greater good. Hence when you sometimes think with disgust and discontent: That man is rich, and lives in abundance, while I am poor, and have to suffer hunger and thirst; remember,, at the same time, to your consolation and comfort: such is the will of God. That man is in a high position, and I am but as the dust under his feet: such is the will of God; that man is strong and healthy, while I am always sickly and delicate: such is the will of God; everything that man puts his hand to thrives, while I am always unlucky: such is the will of God; the one child is deformed, the best son lies dangerously ill, the father, the mother, the husband, the wife is dead; that misfortune has happened me, that lawsuit is lost, and so on: such is the will of God. God wishes things to be so, and that, too, for my greater good; then I can and must be satisfied, and, with St. Joseph, say with a joyful and contented spirit what I daily ask and pray for to my heavenly Father: Thy will be done! Not as I will, but as Thou wilt. Do with me and all mine as seems good to Thee! In this, as I have often told you, consists real piety and true perfection and holiness; namely, to do, omit, suffer, what, when, how, and because God wills, be it in little and mean or in great and wonderful and astonishing things. In this consists a man's true happiness, the greatest he can enjoy on earth; namely, to resign himself fully to God's providence, and be always satisfied with the divine will and decree. In this sense the words of the Wise Man are beyond a doubt: " Whatsoever shall befall the just man it shall not make him sad." Whereupon Salvianus says: Nothing makes the just man sad; for if he is humbled, it is according to his desire, since it is the will of God; if he is poor, he wishes to be so, because it is pleasing to God; and as he wills all that God wills, he always has what he wants, and how he wants it, during his life. Even death itself does not frighten the just man; he is ready to die, if such is the will of God. And with regard to this latter point, again you have a perfect model in St. Joseph. For he was satisfied with the Lord, not only during his life, but also in his death, which he accepted willingly and readily, at the command of God, as we shall briefly see in the
Second Part.
Whenever the question is asked: Who had the most joyful and happy death, our thoughts usually revert to St. Joseph; for although the Holy Scriptures say nothing express on the matter, the general opinion of the holy Fathers and other authors is that he died before Our Lord, and in the presence of Jesus and Mary.
Here again it might seem as if he had not much to boast of in being willing to accept death under such circumstances, and in being content to die. Oh, our hearts begin to bound with joy and desire at the bare thought of it! Ah, we say, who would not die sweetly and peaceably with Jesus on one side and Mary on the other to close his eyes! But, my dear brethren,, from that very circumstance I conclude that the death of Joseph must have been very hard and bitter, only that he was so just and knew so well how to be resigned to the will of God. For in the first place, how is it that even a good and holy man has sometimes a great horror of death when lie thinks of it being close at hand? From what else can that come, but from the natural and inborn desire that all men feel to be and to remain with those whom they love, who love them, and from whom they know that death is about to separate them violently? " Doth bitter death separate in this manner? I think most people with that king of the Amalecites. What is harder and more bitter than for a father to leave his wife and dear children by a premature death, without the hope of ever seeing them again in this life? Indeed, the relations of the dying man are often kept away from his death-bed, lest they should add by their presence to his pains. Now, was there ever a spouse dearer to her husband than Mary to St. Joseph? Had ever father a more loving child than Jesus was to him, in whose presence he found his daily consolation, as we have seen already? And now death had come to separate him from this most agree able and loved company! Was he not sorely troubled when, as St. Luke describes, he lost the Child Jesus, who had remained behind in the temple for three days? How he grieved at having to be without Him even for that short time! And the Mother of God gave expression to the sorrow that he concealed in his heart: " Son, why hast Thou done so to us? Behold, Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing. What, then, must have been his feelings when he saw that he was about to die, and that he would never again on earth lay eyes on those whom he loved so dearly?
Again, if ever he had reason for wishing for a longer life he had it then. It is chiefly anxiety for their children that makes parents desirous of living longer, and therefore you often hear them sighing: Oh, how will my poor children fare when I am gone! If I only saw my son, my daughter settled I should die content ed! And do we think that Joseph had lost all natural affections and inclinations? Must he not have felt a wish to know how things would go with Christ, the Son of God? to see and, to his great delight, hear his supposed Son publicly preaching the gospel, healing the sick, raising the dead, and performing all sorts of wonders, and how, after His death, He would draw the whole world to adore Him? But that consolation was denied him; he had to die.
And, most bitter of all, to what place had he to go after death? O just man, do not complain of death; be neither troubled nor afflicted at the idea of leaving and being parted from your dear ones, for you are going to a far better place, into heaven, where countless friends of God, along with all the angels, await you, in whose society you will rejoice forever! And, as I have said on a former occasion, this is a consideration that makes a pious man on his death-bed feel comfortable and happy at the thought of leaving the world; for he says to himself: What I leave here is very little, and for that I shall be placed over many things, and enter into the joy of my Lord. Hence I am not surprised that so many saints longed eagerly for death, and prepared for it as for a joyous wedding feast. "I am straitened," says the Apostle, I suffer violence, " having a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ." I believe thee, holy Apostle; thou hast good reason for thy desire! Why? He answers: " For we know if our earthly house of this habitation be dissolved, that we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in heaven;" thither all my desires tend; " for in this also we groan, desiring to be clothed upon with our habitation that is from heaven." The same sure hope inspired others with such joy that they could not hide it at the approach of death, but were forced to show it openly, and with joyful accents to sing: Te Deum laudamus! Others, with Simeon, cried out: "Now Thou dost dismiss Thy servant, Lord! according to Thy word, in peace;" others, with David: "I rejoiced at the things that were said to me: We shall go into the house of the Lord."
" Come, my soul, my sister, my spouse," said St. Jerome, speaking to death. Our St. Aloysius began, with smiling face, to sing on his death-bed: "We go with joy! we go with joy! " Whither? asked a Father who was standing by. "To heaven! to heaven!" But where had Joseph to go after death? To heaven? No, indeed! The door was still shut fast, nor was it opened until Christ entered, after death, in triumph with His saints. Where had Joseph to go meanwhile? To a gloomy hole in the earth, to the limbo of the fathers, where those poor souls had to wait for their redemption, for they could not come to that God whom they knew to be their only Good, and whom they desired to see; not otherwise than a son, who, on his return from a long journey, stands on one side of a river, looking with many a sigh at his father's house, longing to enter it after twenty years absence, but cannot do so because he has not a boat to carry him over. Hear the heartrending sighs with which those poor souls in the days of old implored the obdurate heaven and earth as well: " Oh, that thou wouldst rend the heavens! " Ah, that they would send down the Saviour! " Let the earth be opened and bud forth a saviour." Now think of this, my dear brethren, and see whether it would not have pleased him better to have remained longer on earth, and to have enjoyed the heaven he found in the society of Jesus and Mary!
O dear Lord! is it thus Thou allowest Thy dear foster-father to leave Thee, and to go "into the region of the shadow of death "? King Ezechias, when his death was foretold to him, begged of Thy Father for a respite in the following mournful prayer: " I beseech Thee, Lord, remember how I have walked before Thee in truth, and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in Thy sight." And Thy Father heard him, and prolonged his life for fifteen years, as Isaias tells us. And couldst not Thou, divine Son, have obtained a similar favor for Thy foster-father, and kept him in life until he might have entered heaven gloriously with Thee? Hast Thou not said: " All things are delivered to Me by My Father "? Didst Thou not restore to the widow of Nairn her dead son, and raise from the grave Lazarus, who was already beginning to decay? And when Thy friends remembered the premature death of Joseph, could they not with reason have said of Thee, as the Jews did: " Could not He that opened the eyes of the man born blind have caused that this man should not die?" Might they not have wondered why Thou who didst raise the dead to life couldst not prolong Joseph's life, for a time at least? Was the prayer of Thy foster-father, then, of less efficacy with Thee than that of King Ezechias? I beseech Thee, Son! he might have said with much more reason than Ezechias, remember how I have walked before Thee; remember the fatherly care I be stowed on Thee from Thy childhood! Remember how often I have carried Thee in my arms! Remember how I saved Thee from the fury of Herod, and how for Thy sake I had to under take long journeys here and there, and to fly with Thee into Egypt! Remember how I labored in the sweat of my brow to find food for Thee! So might Joseph have prayed, and he would assuredly have been heard; but the thought of such a prayer never even entered his mind. For he had learned from the divine Son, who was always subject to him, to resign himself cheer fully even to such a death, since it was the will of God. He who during his life set out for the wild land of Egypt in the middle of the night, without any provision for the journey, at the first word of the angel, and without a word of opposition, now, with the same readiness, not hesitating a moment, sets out on his journey to limbo. This one thought was enough for him: such is the will of God.
My dear brethren, it is time for me to conclude. There you have a perfect model of resignation to the divine will, as I promised to give it you. St. Joseph was satisfied with the Lord's will during his life satisfied with it in his death, hard though it was for him. And learn this, too: the best means of ensuring a happy death is to offer one's self to the Lord to die how, when, and where it may be pleasing to Him. Hear St. Augustine: " There are some who say that they do not wish to die that they may become more perfect, whereas their perfection consists in their being willing to die." And what he means by this is: He who desires to become perfect must prepare to live so that he may be willing to die at any hour or moment when the Creator gives the sign; for we cannot offer to God a more agreeable sacrifice than to give Him,, according to His will, that which we hold most dear of all things, namely, our life. Therefore I conclude with St. John Chrysostom: " Let us offer to God as a gift what we are obliged to offer Him as a debt." Let us live piously, holily, and according to the will of God, and then nothing will prevent us from being willing to die according to the will of God! Obtain for us this willingness and readiness, holy St. Joseph! And if fear or anguish should trouble us on our death-beds, do thou assist us with those whose hands closed thy eyes in death, that is, with Jesus and Mary; and then, after thy example, we, too, shall die contented. Amen.