th<\/sup>\u00a0century, one of the most sought-after realist portrait painters was a Frenchman by the name of James Tissot.<\/strong>\u00a0 He made his reputation painting society women and the wealthy in and around Paris.\u00a0 But at one point in his life, while doing research for a painting, he stepped inside a church.\u00a0 While there, he had a profound religious experience.\u00a0 He left a changed man, and devoted the rest of his life to spiritual and religious themes \u2013 including hundreds of paintings depicting scenes from the bible, most famously, the life of Christ.\u00a0 The Brooklyn Museum has many of these sketches and watercolors, and they had an exhibit last year.\u00a0 They are beautiful, and moving.<\/p>\nThey are also deeply human\u00a0 \u2014 none more so than a work that has direct bearing on this Sundays gospel. It is a surprising portrait of St. Joseph.<\/p>\n
Joseph is shown at his carpenter\u2019s table, with tools scattered around him.\u00a0 His shop is small, cramped, planks and pieces of wood everywhere, shavings piled up on the floor.\u00a0 The windows look out onto the bustling streets of Nazareth, where townspeople are going about their business.\u00a0 But in the middle of all that stands Joseph, bent over his table, his bearded chin in his hand, deep in thought.<\/p>\n
The painting\u2019s title says it all: \u201cThe Anxiety of Joseph.\u201d<\/p>\n
We rarely think of him that way.\u00a0 But Tissot, as he often does, penetrated to the heart of his subject.<\/p>\n
Maybe Tissot was showing Joseph the morning before he has the dream we just heard in Matthew\u2019s gospel.\u00a0 Or maybe it is the morning after \u2013 and he is coming to terms with what the angel has said, and what he must do.<\/p>\n
But what we see in Tissot\u2019s picture \u2013 and what is hinted at in this gospel today \u2013 is a man more like us than we realize.<\/p>\n
We tend to think of Joseph the way we see him in the manger scene outside our church, or on the cards we send, or the pageants that are staged.\u00a0\u00a0 He is strong, stoic, patient \u2013 \u201crighteous,\u201d as Matthew describes him.<\/p>\n
But Tissot understood that the man betrothed to Mary was a man of worries, and apprehension, and even fear.\u00a0 This morning, I\u2019d like to suggest that Joseph is also a man who speaks to our own time.<\/p>\n
He is a man for our age \u2013 an Age of Anxiety.<\/strong><\/p>\nHe must have known economic uncertainty \u2013 wondering how he would support and sustain his family, running his own small business.\u00a0 He had to pay taxes \u2013 to \u201crender unto Caeser.\u201d\u00a0 Like many people today, shortly after his son was born, Joseph and his family became refugees, immigrants in a foreign land \u2013 the land that had held his people as slaves.\u00a0 Joseph also lived with the threat of terror \u2013 a ruthless king bent on murdering children.<\/p>\n
On a more personal level, Joseph knew the anxiety of any man about to become a father. He must have asked himself:\u00a0am I ready for this?\u00a0 Am I good enough, strong enough, wise enough?<\/em>\u00a0And then, confronting the very real possibility of scandal, Joseph must have had more than a few sleepless nights.\u00a0 How, he must have wondered, could he protect and spare the woman he loved?<\/p>\nAnd \u2014 like Mary, the woman he loved \u2014 he also must have thought at some point:\u00a0this is not what I had planned.\u00a0\u00a0 Everything is suddenly different.<\/em><\/p>\nHow many of us have said that about our own lives?<\/strong>\u00a0 How many of us have had to face, like Joseph, a confusing world with uncertainty, and doubt, and anxiety and fear?<\/p>\nHow many of us have felt like the man in that Tissot drawing, frozen in place, while the world moves on around us, and we stand there and worry and wonder:\u00a0 what do I do?\u00a0\u00a0 How will I get through this?<\/p>\n
But into all that, in Joseph\u2019s complicated life, comes a voice in a dream.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo not be afraid.\u00a0 God is with us.\u201d<\/p>\n
And his world \u2013 and ours \u2013 is changed.<\/p>\n
In the middle of \u201cthe anxiety of Joseph\u201d comes blessed reassurance \u2013 and a reminder that God\u2019s will sees beyond our fears, beyond our limitations.<\/p>\n
When our lives can seem a nightmare, we cannot forget to dream.<\/p>\n
When every demon seems to be making our lives hell, we cannot forget to listen for angels.<\/p>\n
When our world has been turned upside down, we cannot forget to trust that God will make it right.<\/p>\n
Again and again, the words come to us from the gospels, in times of confusion and doubt and anxiety.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo not be afraid.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nThat is the message to Joseph, to Mary, to the shepherds, to the apostles \u2013 and to us.<\/strong><\/p>\nAnd in these last days of Advent, that is the great message the gospels leave us with as we light the last candle and sing \u201cO Come, O Come Emmanuel.\u201d\u00a0 The light is brighter.\u00a0 God\u2019s presence is closer.<\/p>\n
If you have any doubts about that, just think of Joseph, the great silent partner of the Holy Family, the man who doesn\u2019t utter a word in the gospels \u2013 but whose ability to trust, and to dream, and to listen speaks volumes.<\/p>\n
In the end, the words of the angel echo down to us as the great defining message of Advent hope \u2014 banishing all fear, easing all anxiety.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo not be afraid.\u00a0 God is with us.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Still looking for a Christmas gift for a priest or deacon? \u00a0Allow me to suggest a book: \u201cNaked and You Clothed Me: Homilies and Reflections for Cycle A\u201d. \u00a0This is the second of a three-volume series, covering all three liturgical cycles, featuring homilies from people like James Martin SJ, Richard Rohr, OFM, Dan Horan, OFM, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n