Lessons 4 - 6 From the Divine Office of the Octave Day of the Solemnity of St. Joseph. Book 1 of On Marriage And Concupiscence, chapter 11 by St. Augustine the Bishop.
Lessons 4 - 6 From the Divine Office of the Octave Day of the Solemnity of St. Joseph. Book 1 of On Marriage And Concupiscence, chapter 11 by St. Augustine the Bishop.
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The Angel did not speak falsely when he said to Joseph: Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife. She is called wife because of the mutual confidence established between them at the time of her espousal, although he had not known her carnally, nor was he ever so to do. And the name of wife was not lost or rendered untrue because there had not been any carnal intercourse, and would not be in the future. She was, in fact, The Virgin; and therefore she was holier and a more wonderful source of joy to her husband just because she became a mother without a man's intervention. Thus he knew her to be like unto himself in faithfulness, unlike him as regards her offspring. On account of his faithful union, both of them merited the name of Christ's parents. And not only is she called His Mother, but he also is called His father, as being the husband of His Mother, not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. But even though he was a father only in spirit, whilst she was Mother according to the flesh, yet they both were the parents of His humility, not of His glory; of his infirmity, not of His divinity.
For the Gospel doth not lie, when it saith: And Joseph and his Mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of Him. And in another place: His parents went to Jerusalem every year. And a little further on: And His Mother said unto him; Son, why hast Thou thus dealt with us? behold thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing. But, to shew that, apart from them, He had a Father Who begat him without a mother, He answered them: How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business? And, as a set-off to this, lest anyone might think that by these words he denied His parents, the Evangelist immediately addeth: And they understood the saying which He spake unto them; and He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them. To whom was He subject but to His parents? And who was thus subject but Jesus Christ, Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal to God?
Why therefore was He subject to them who were so far below the form of God, except that He humbled himself, taking upon Himself the form of a servant, of which form they were the parents? But truly, neither of them would have attained unto the parenthood of this form of a servant, except they had become respectively husband wife, albeit without any carnal intercourse. And hence, when the ancestors of Christ are recounted in direct line of succession, the genealogy was fittingly traced down to Joseph. Otherwise, it would have been a slur upon the male sex, which is wont to be accorded the greater dignity. At the same time the truth did not suffer, for both Joseph and Mary were of the seed of David, from which it was prophesied that Christ should come. Note how thus all the good things of marriage are found in these parents of Christ: offspring, fidelity, the marriage bond. The offspring we know, was the Lord Jesus Himself; their fidelity is proved because there was no adultery; the marriage bond, because there was no divorce.