Reflection for Sunday – December 21, 2025

Cathy KampSunday Readings Homilies

Readings: Isaiah 7:10-14, Romans 1:1-7, Matthew 1:18-24 
Preacher: Cathy Glisson

We talk of Advent as our season of waiting and reflection. From the perspective of Saint Joseph, it is all about listening, discerning, and taking action.

Prior to moving to Rochester 30 years ago and joining St. Joseph’s Church in Penfield, I would have been hard pressed to offer an understanding of the role of Saint Joseph in our salvation. The 2006 publication of Fr. James Martin’s My Life with the Saints stirred my imagination about the role of Joseph as Jesus was growing up.

 In more recent years, Pope Francis popularized a particular devotion to Saint Joseph, specifically the “sleeping Joseph.” This fourth Sunday of Advent’s Gospel from Matthew speaks to the tremendous impact of what happened as Joseph slept. Mary was betrothed to Joseph at the time when Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit in Mary’s womb following her glorious “yes” to God.

Being betrothed meant they were legally bound to each other in a Jewish marriage contract. To be found with a child conceived outside the marriage was considered adultery. For Joseph, it meant he had the option to divorce Mary. For Mary, under Mosaic law, adultery was punishable by death.

We know from Matthew that Joseph was discerning his options. As a faithful Jewish man, he had decided to divorce Mary but to do so quietly to shield her from harm. We can imagine he might have slept more peacefully after making this decision. Enter the angel of the Lord! It is while Joseph sleeps that God speaks: “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.” Matthew reminds his Jewish readers that this was all to fulfill what we hear in the first reading from the prophet Isaiah, “the Virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel.”

We know that Joseph did take Mary, his wife, into his home. Matthew tells us that “when Joseph awoke” he took this life-changing, history-altering step in contrast to what he had initially decided. This is an extraordinary act of listening to God, understanding God’s will, and courageously acting on it. That’s why Pope Francis was devoted to the sleeping Joseph. He kept a statue of the sleeping Joseph in his room and placed prayer intentions, or “problems,” under the statue to seek the intercession of Saint Joseph.

At St. Joseph’s Church in Penfield, when we were working on a stained-glass window project to depict Scripture leading up to the birth of Jesus, in addition to images of the Annunciation and Visitation, we included a sleeping Joseph. I find it hard to pass by the window without sharing a problem or prayer with Joseph (and thinking of our late Pope Francis).

Without the sleeping Joseph, we would not have the obedient Joseph. It is similar to how Saint Paul describes himself in the second reading. Through God, Joseph “received the grace of apostleship, to bring about the obedience of faith, for the sake of his name…” Because of this amazing act of taking Mary into his home and his heart, Saint Joseph became the foster father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He becomes the husband beside Mary as the child is born. He is the protector when they flee as holy refugees to a foreign land to avoid the baby’s demise.

Joseph, along with Mary, raises Jesus in what Fr. Martin describes as a “hidden life,” a life about which we know so little. In My Life with the Saints, Fr. Martin writes: “Undoubtedly, Joseph would have passed on to Jesus the values required to become a good carpenter.” Among those values are the patience required to wait for wood dry, judgment to make straight lines, honesty in how you charge for your work, and persistence to get desired results. “It is not difficult to imagine,” he writes, “that the skills Jesus learned from his teacher —patience, judgment, honesty, and persistence— served him well in his later ministry.

‘Joseph helped fashion Jesus into what the theologian John Haughey, SJ, called ‘the instrument most needed for the salvation of the world.’” May we approach Christmas with the same values, courage, and obedience, leaving our problems in the hands of the restful Joseph. Saint Joseph, pray for us all!

Cathy Kamp
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