19/03/2018

Good morning.
The saint whose feast falls today
carries me to the small Co Down village of my grandparents,
because the Roman Catholic Church right in the middle of it is St Joseph’s.
One of the few things passed down to me about my late grandfather
was that he held the keys for both the chapel – St Joseph’s –
and the local Orange Hall.

Now I don’t know if that meant
people called to collect and return the keys from my grandfather,
or maybe it was the spare keys he kept but that’s not the point.
What it’s always meant to me, very simply,
is that whilst not a member of either St Joseph’s or the Orange Lodge,
my grandfather was a man people felt they could trust.
It leaves me wondering today
whether God felt the same way about Joseph of Nazareth?

By the social and religious conventions of his day,
Joseph’s initial plan might seem forgiving enough:
he’d decided to dismiss the pregnant Mary quietly,
Instead of which,
Joseph goes through with the marriage and raises the child Jesus as his own.
Then there’s the flight to Egypt.
Rather than take the short route home from Bethlehem to Galilee,
Joseph heads off in the opposite direction completely
in the name of protecting his new family.

Reading the Gospel accounts
of the dreams or angelic visions which precede these U-turns for Joseph,
obviously God is charging him with a task no one else can see through.
We see nothing directly of how Joseph feels about ant of this this,
but it’s as though God knows this is a man He can depend on absolutely.

Trusting Lord, give us courage
to rise above our own self-interests,
to look to the needs of those around us
and, giving all the glory to Christ,
to be people others can trust. Amen