A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew
“Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
In today’s Gospel, Joseph hears the angel of the Lord and does as he commands. Joseph is the first to take Mary into his home; since then, innumerable Christians throughout history have taken Mary into their homes. Mary’s yes ushered in God’s new creation through Christ; Joseph’s yes brought Mary into the heart of his home and into the center of salvation and redemption for all people. To hear and believe what the angel of the Lord said, Joseph had to put aside fear and, like Mary, begin to ponder the name above all names: Jesus. How can I not respond in kind as Joseph did?
God, give me the grace to comprehend what it means to ask Mary into my home. In doing that, I know there is no guarantee of consolation or receiving whatever I pray for. Instead, the more I ask Mary to intercede for me, the more things will be shaken up as she redirects me to her son. At the Wedding at Cana, Mary said of Jesus to the servers: “Do whatever he says.” And so Jesus began his public ministry, which led to his Passion, death, and resurrection. Hear me, God, and help me recall: when the day’s challenges are in full force and multiple imperatives become entangled with one another, let me be unafraid and do as Joseph did by inviting Mary into the heart of the conflict.
Stay with me, Lord; let me be obedient to you, as Joseph was in his faithful care of Mary and Jesus.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.