Homily for December
18, 2004
CONNECTION TO
PATRIARCH JOSEPH
After putting the proper
connections between the Messiah and his human ancestors Abraham, the father of
faith, and King David, the father of the Davidic dynasty, in yesterday’s gospel
narrative, we are now ready to put the connection of Jesus Christ to the
members of his immediate family, to his foster father Joseph the Patriarch,
spouse of the Virgin Mary.
Today’s
gospel presents Joseph as a man of honor, integrity and devotion (Mt. 1:19). This did not only consist in
wanting to withhold his name from a child whose father he did not know, but
also, since he was convinced of Mary’s virtue, in refusing to expose to the
rigor of the Law (Dt. 22:20f) a mystery he did not understand.
But
Joseph, who is a descendant of King David (Mt. 1:20, Lk. 2:4), born in David’s tribe in Bethlehem, Judah
(Lk. 2:4), was not the only one among his family, as recorded in sacred
scriptures, who had gone with the same situation, experience, and displayed the
same honor, integrity and self-sacrifice in the face of a most difficult
situation, as narrated here in today’s gospel.
Joseph’s
dilemma with how to deal with the situation of his betrothed spouse, the Virgin
Mary, has a parallel in sacred scriptures with the story of Boaz and Ruth (See
the Book of Ruth).
Let
us go back to the story of Boaz who married Ruth, in order to rescue her from a
situation of shame and infamy.
Ruth
was the Moabite daughter-in-law of Naomi (who had another name, Mara, which
means “the bitter one”). Ruth was her daughter-in-law because she was married
to Mahlon, Naomi’s son to Elimelech, who was an Ephrathite, from Bethlehem of
Judah. When all her husband and two sons, Chillion and Mahlon, died in the land
of Moab, leaving her bereft of husband and her two sons, Noami was left with
her two daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah, to tend for themselves in a foreign
land. She heard that Yahweh had visited once more the land of Judah
and given them food, so she decided to return to the land of Judah.
On the road back to Judah,
she turned to her two daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah, to send them back to
the land of Moab, to their mother’s houses. Orpha
turned back for her maother’s house in Moab, but Ruth stayed with her
mother-in-law Naomi.
It
was the beginning of the barley harvest when Noami and her daughter-in-law,
Ruth, reached Bethlehem, Judah. Noami sent out Ruth to one
of the fields owned by Elimelech’s kinsmen, by one named Boaz. There Ruth
gleaned the fields, until the end of the harvest, when Naomi sent her out again
to Boaz’ house to sleep at his foot when the latter was drunk and tired after
the threshing of the harvested barley. When Boaz awoke, he saw Ruth sleeping at
his foot, and asked her why she had done this. Ruth told her of Naomi’s plan to
let her be redeemed back by Boaz, by exercising the goel over her as the widow
of Elimelech’s son, Mahlon. But since
Boaz was not the nearest kinsman of Elimelech, in the morning at the plaza,
Boaz called for the man who was nearest of kin to Elimelch to exercise his
right of goel by purchasing the land owned by Elimelech. The man agreed. But
when Boaz told him to take Mahlon”s widow, Ruth, as well in order to restore
the dead man to his inheritance, the man refused to take Ruth as his wife. So,
being the second nearest kinsman, Boaz took Ruth for his wife. From this union,
was born Obed, who was the father of King David’s father, Jesse. The
dutifulness of Ruth and Boaz, thus makes Naomi the ancestress of King David.
This
is the story of Boaz and Ruth, which has a similarity with the story of Joseph
and Mary, who were Jesus’ parents.
Both
Boaz and Joseph displayed a great courage and self-sacrifice in the face of a
most difficult challenge to make, just so the plan of God, mysterious as they
were, could be fulfilled and realized in human history.
How
fortunate we are to have the personality of Joseph, a noble, righteous, devoted
and self-sacrificing man, to be connected with the Messiah, in order to give
him, together with the Virgin Mary (who was also of David’s line), the
necessary connection and link to King David.
Tomorrow,
we shall talk about the connection between the Messiah and Patriarch Joseph for
the second time, our fourth Messianic connection.
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