Fourth Sunday of Advent – Year C: 21.12.25
Mass @ 9.00am OLSD, Naas
Mass @ 10.30am Church of the Irish Martyrs, Ballycane
Fr. Liam & Team
Introduction:
It’s a joy to join you here in Naas on this the Fourth Sunday of Advent. We are very much in this second period of Advent from December 17th in what is referred to as the Holy Week of the Advent Season. It’s important to remain in this season and not to preempt or be previous with Christmas. We are entering the final hurdle, but every fence must be tackled. Still a few days to go and maybe for most of us, just as well! Boys and girls, how many more sleeps left until Christmas – four!
The focus put before all of us this morning is the biblical character and the man Joseph – his mind, his thoughts, his feelings. The predicament he faced, Joseph the worker, he should really be called Joseph the risk taker! How do we cope when confronted by choices to do right or to do wrong, let’s pause a moment to call to mind our sins …
- Is tusa Tobar na Trócaire – you are the wellspring of mercy:
A Thiarna, déan trócaire
- Is tusa Slí na Fírinne – you are the way of Truth:
A Chríost, déan trócaire
- Bí linn i gcónaí, ós ár gcomhair amach – be with us always, showing us the way.
A Thiarna, déan Trócaire
Homily:
Matthews gospel offers us a very different take on the nativity account from the more familiar text from St. Luke we hear on Christmas night. Matthew focuses on Joseph. Allowing us for a few moments to walk in his shoes, to feel the pain in the decisions he was left with, to wonder what if? To live with his confusion, to experience his dream, to carry out what that dream entailed.
Joseph, the wood carver, the carpenter, is never going to be the star of the Nativity, he would never be nominated for a BAFTA or an Emmy; and yet while not the star, his role is crucial. Without Joseph there is no nativity.
An image of Joseph on a Christmas Card I received this week remains with me, it was of a manly Joseph cuddling the baby while Mary grabs forty winks. It’s the image from a stained-glass window in St. Joseph the Worker Church in Ozark, Missouri.
Every year around now cribs, the brainwave of St. Francis of Assisi are erected. A ’live crib’ by all accounts is a messy venture, there are smells, there are mishaps, there might even be a few surprises! Even with our own cribs there can be that effort at perfection and we realise that first Christmas night, Mary and Joseph had to do with whatever rubble, whatever discards, whatever untidyness was in the stable before they arrived. There was no time for a Milton or detergent once over, there was a baby to be born.
Every crib should cause us to think! A few years ago in the square at St. Peter’s in Rome, the usual stable, donkey, cow and manger had been replaced by a depiction of the home of Joseph. In doing so the Vatican Nativity Crib brought the gospel we’ve just heard from St. Matthew alive rather than the more familiar account from St. Luke.
I suppose in a culture that at times appears more secular than sacred, and yet a culture that still is moved by the Nativity Scene depicted these days with empty mangers in millions of Christian Churches around the world.
Pope Francis loved St. Joseph! … he had him inserted into the Eucharistic Prayer … behind every good woman is a good man … when I attended the ‘Baby Bishops Course’ twelve years back he encouraged us “to have the smell of the sheep” with such thoughts we find ourselves back to the live crib! I love the sleeping St. Joseph, a gift from the priests who travelled to Lourdes with me on our first diocesan pilgrimage in 2017. Joseph sleeps now on my bedside locker, and he is always asleep well ahead of me every night!
The bible pays Joseph the highest compliment: he was a “just” man. That quality means more than faithfulness and paying your dues or debts. When the bible uses that term “justifying”, it means that God transforms the person so that they share in his holiness. Joseph had that privilege.
For Joseph to be “just” he was completely open to all that God wanted to do for Him. He was open to the dreams; he was open to the visit of the angel; he was open to doing whatever was needed to protect his heavily pregnant wife and later the young mother with her baby in arms. But let’s also realise Joseph hadn’t it easy. There were many moments where he had to take stock, to make hard calls, to carry out tough decisions. Mathews gospel talks about him not wanting to hurt Mary by divorcing her informally. The escape into Egypt, all the time on edge looking over his shoulder.
