March 19, 2026
Solemnity of Saint Joseph, Spouse
of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Lectionary:
543
Reading
1
The
LORD spoke to Nathan and said:
"Go, tell my servant David,
'When your time comes and you rest with your ancestors,
I will raise up your heir after you, sprung from your loins,
and I will make his kingdom firm.
It is he who shall build a house for my name.
And I will make his royal throne firm forever.
I will be a father to him,
and he shall be a son to me.
Your house and your kingdom shall endure forever before me;
your throne shall stand firm forever.'"
Responsorial
Psalm
R.
(37) The son of David will live for ever.
The promises of the LORD I will sing forever;
through all generations my mouth shall proclaim your faithfulness,
For you have said, "My kindness is established forever";
in heaven you have confirmed your faithfulness.
R. The son of David will live for ever.
"I have made a covenant with my chosen one,
I have sworn to David my servant:
Forever will I confirm your posterity
and establish your throne for all generations."
R. The son of David will live for ever.
"He shall say of me, 'You are my father,
my God, the Rock, my savior.'
Forever I will maintain my kindness toward him,
and my covenant with him stands firm."
R. The son of David will live for ever.
Reading
2
Brothers
and sisters:
It was not through the law
that the promise was made to Abraham and his descendants
that he would inherit the world,
but through the righteousness that comes from faith.
For this reason, it depends on faith,
so that it may be a gift,
and the promise may be guaranteed to all his descendants,
not to those who only adhere to the law
but to those who follow the faith of Abraham,
who is the father of all of us, as it is written,
I have made you father of many nations.
He is our father in the sight of God,
in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead
and calls into being what does not exist.
He believed, hoping against hope,
that he would become the father of many nations,
according to what was said, Thus shall your descendants be.
That is why it was credited to him as righteousness.
Verse
Before the Gospel
Blessed
are those who dwell in your house, O Lord;
they never cease to praise you.
Gospel
Jacob
was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary.
Of her was born Jesus who is called the Christ.
Now this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.
When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph,
but before they lived together,
she was found with child through the Holy Spirit.
Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man,
yet unwilling to expose her to shame,
decided to divorce her quietly.
Such was his intention when, behold,
the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said,
“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.”
When Joseph awoke,
he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him
and took his wife into his home.
or
Each
year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover,
and when he was twelve years old,
they went up according to festival custom.
After they had completed its days, as they were returning,
the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem,
but his parents did not know it.
Thinking that he was in the caravan,
they journeyed for a day
and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances,
but not finding him,
they returned to Jerusalem to look for him.
After three days they found him in the temple,
sitting in the midst of the teachers,
listening to them and asking them questions,
and all who heard him were astounded
at his understanding and his answers.
When his parents saw him,
they were astonished,
and his mother said to him,
“Son, why have you done this to us?
Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.”
And he said to them,
“Why were you looking for me?
Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
But they did not understand what he said to them.
He went down with them and came to Nazareth,
and was obedient to them.
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031926.cfm
Commentary on 2
Samuel 7:4-5,12-14,16; Romans 4:13,16-18,22; Matthew 1:16,18-21,24 (or Luke
2:41-51)
The Entrance Antiphon for today’s feast summarises the
result of St Joseph’s encounter with the angel Gabriel:
The Lord has put his faithful servant in charge of his
household.
When we read the Gospel from Matthew today, we find that
Joseph is in a most awful dilemma. The woman to whom he is betrothed is
pregnant before they have come together to live as man and wife. He does not
know that the conception has been the work of the Holy Spirit and certainly
doesn’t know that the Father of Mary’s child is God himself.
A Jewish betrothal was a much more binding relationship than
our modern engagement. The couple could already be referred to as ‘husband’ and
‘wife’, as Matthew does in his Gospel. In effect, the marriage had already
begun. The betrothal could only be broken by a formal repudiation or a type of
divorce.
At the same time, there were no intimate relations between
the couple during this period. So one can see the terrible dilemma that Joseph
was in. He was pledged to marry Mary, but it appeared—and this was the only
natural conclusion he could come to—she had been unfaithful. During this time,
the situation of a woman involved in adultery was a very serious matter. We
know the story in John’s Gospel where a woman caught in an adulterous
relationship is to be stoned to death according to the Law. Many men—perhaps we
could say most any man—would have been upset, angry and totally humiliated.
Joseph sees only one possibility, to terminate the
relationship. This could have been done in a very nasty way. It is the kind of
thing we see regularly in our media. But Joseph, we are told, was a “righteous”
(or ‘just’) man. In effect, this meant that he was zealous in observing the
Law. But in this context it seems to have a deeper meaning, namely, that he was
a very good man, a caring and sensitive man. At the same time, he does not want
to go through the fiction of being regarded as the father of a child he did not
conceive. He decides to go through with the termination of the relationship in
as quiet a manner as possible, not exposing Mary to a public trial and stoning:
Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling
to expose her to public disgrace, planned to divorce her quietly.
Another explanation that has been given is that he was not
willing to go through with the marriage out of reverence for the mystery of
Mary’s motherhood, which he does not fully understand.
In either case, he needs to be persuaded by a message from
God that, in spite of appearances, he is to take Mary as his wife, that is, to
go through a full marriage ceremony with her. He is further told that the
Father of the child is God himself, and he is instructed to name the child
Jesus:
…for he [Jesus] will save his people
from their sins.
The name ‘Jesus’, in fact, means ‘Yahweh saves’.
There is no doubt that Joseph fully deserves the title
‘righteous’. Someone might find him to be rather passive and naïve in such a
situation, but events were to prove his restraint fully justified. We might
look to him as an example when we are tempted to jump in with both feet in
accusing people when the evidence seems very strong. But we know from
experience that quite often we are wrong. And in being wrong we have often been
unjust, cruel and vindictive. And, even when we are right, vindictive revenge
or using the full weight of the law is hardly the best way to solve a failed
relationship or even a betrayal. When we take revenge, our ‘enemy’ may suffer,
but very often so do we.
The other readings in today’s Mass are also linked with
Joseph. The First Reading is taken from a prophetic statement made by the
prophet Nathan to King David. God promises that David’s dynasty will succeed
unlike that of his predecessor Saul:
I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come
forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.
These words are spoken directly about David’s son, Solomon.
Nathan continues, speaking in God’s name:
I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.
While Nathan’s prophecy speaks of Solomon, it is seen also
as God speaking of Jesus. Jesus is a descendant of David through Joseph, who
belonged to David’s line. The sentence, then, has a double meaning: God and
Joseph will be father to the newborn child. And, of course, through Jesus, the
promise that David’s dynasty will last forever finds fulfilment. The promise of
an everlasting dynasty is a theme of many later prophecies, and this promise
generated the hope of a Messiah who would deliver Israel.
The Second Reading from the Letter to the Romans is from a
chapter which speaks of Abraham. The parallels with Joseph are again very
strong. In this case, Paul’s emphasis is on Abraham’s faith. Abraham and his
wife, Sarah, already in old age, still had no legitimate son. There was a son
by a slave girl, Hagar, and he was called Ishmael. Yet God had told Abraham
that his descendants would be as numerous as the sands on the seashore or as
the stars in the sky. Given their age, the couple could have laughed at this
promise. But Abraham continued to believe and to hope:
Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become
“the father of many nations,” according to what was said, “So shall your
descendants be.”
Paul emphasises that Abraham was rewarded, not because of
his faithful observance of an external law, but because of his absolute trust
in the word and the promise of God. In other words, it was not by his actions
that he put God under an obligation to respond. God is never under such an
obligation. Whatever we do for God is something that is owed to him anyway, and
is done by the strength which he alone gives.
What God gives us when we are in a position of total trust
is a free gift—grace (Greek, charis). And that gift is open to all
who believe in him and:
…not only to the adherents of the law but also to those
who share the faith of Abraham…
Abraham is seen as the “father of many nations”, Jews and
Gentiles alike. God’s love and grace are not confined to a certain group or
class of people.
Like Abraham, we are to put our faith and trust in the same
God:
…who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the
things that do not exist.
Abraham and Sarah were, for all intents and purposes, ‘dead’
as far as child-bearing was concerned. Yet God brought new life to them by
bringing into existence a son who, in the eyes of many, could not exist. Yet,
still, Abraham:
Hoping against hope…believed that he would become “the
father of many nations”…
These similarities with Joseph are striking. Joseph, too,
was a “righteous man”, a ‘just’ man. He was a man of great faith. It required
great faith to believe that the child Mary bore came from God and was not the
result of a natural relationship. He was a man of great integrity, who faced
the situation with a great deal of self-restraint and sensitivity to Mary. He
was a man of great humility, keeping quietly to the background as the drama
unfolds. Yet he played an important role as surrogate father, protecting his
wife and her child. He was there at Bethlehem when the child was born. He
brought mother and child into Egypt to escape the murderous threats of Herod.
He looked after them in their home at Nazareth and accompanied them on their
journeys to Jerusalem for the great feasts. How anxious he must have been with
Mary when the boy disappeared in the big city of Jerusalem, packed with
strangers for the Passover (see Luke’s Gospel for today).
In the Hebrew Testament there was another famous Joseph, the
second youngest son of Jacob. He was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers
and eventually became second in rank in the empire of the Pharaohs. And he,
too, was the ‘go to’ guy, because when:
…all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to
Pharaoh for bread. Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, “Go to Joseph; what he
says to you, do.” (Gen 41:55)
Let us go to St Joseph to intercede for us in our needs. He
has been chosen as patron many times, including being patron of the Church and
Patron Saint of the Society of Jesus.
It would be nice, too, to think that some of Jesus’
qualities came from Joseph as much as from Mary. So, on this his feast day, let
us ask him to let us share in some of his outstanding virtues: in his faith,
his refusal to make hasty judgements in a difficult situation, his integrity
and goodness, his humility and modesty and in accepting with grace his
supporting role in the Holy Family and his care for the Church.
Let us conclude with the Opening Prayer from today’s Mass:
Father,
You entrusted our Saviour to the care of Saint Joseph.
By the help of his prayers,
may your Church continue to serve its Lord, Jesus Christ,
who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen
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Thursday,
March 19, 2026
St. Joseph
the Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary – Solemnity.
LECTIO
Opening Prayer:
Spirit who moves over the water,
calm in us all discordance, the agitated waves, the noise of the words, the
whirlwind of vanity, and make the Word which recreates, arise in silence.
Spirit who in a
sigh you whisper to our spirit the Name of the Father, come and gather together
all our desires, make them grow in a beam of light which will be a response to
Your light, the Word of the new Day.
Spirit of God, the sap of love of the
immense tree on which you graft us, so that all our brothers and sisters will
seem to us as a gift in the great Body in which the Word of communion matures.
(Frère Pierre-Yves of Taizé) Reading of the Gospel: Matthew 1: 16,
18-21, 24a
Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband
of Mary. Of her was born Jesus who is called the Christ. Now this is how the
birth of Jesus Christ came about. When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph,
but before they lived together, she was found with child through the Holy
Spirit. Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to
expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly. Such was his intention
when, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said,
"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." When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the
Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home. A Moment of Silence:
so that the Word of God may enter into our hearts and
enlighten our lives.
MEDITATIO
A Key to the Reading:
The passage of
today’s Gospel is taken from the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew which
forms part of the section concerning the conception, birth, and infancy of
Jesus. The center of all this account is the person of Jesus around which are
all the events and the persons mentioned. One must keep in mind that the Gospel
reveals a theology of the history of Jesus, and so getting close to the Word of
God we should get the message which is hidden under the veils of the account
without losing ourselves, as Paul so wisely advises us “in foolish
speculations,” avoiding “those genealogies and the quibbles and disputes about
the Law, they are useless and futile” (Tt 3: 9).
In fact, this
text is connected to the genealogy of Jesus, which Matthew arranges with the
intention of stressing the dynastic succession of Jesus, the Savior of his
people (Mt 1: 21). To Jesus are conferred all the rights inherited from the
lineage of David, of “Joseph, son of David” (Mt 1: 20; Lk 2: 4-5) His legal
father. For the Biblical and Hebrew world legal paternity was sufficient to
confer all the rights of the lineage in question (cf.: the law of the levirate
and of adoption (Dt 25: 5ff). That is why from the beginning of the genealogy,
Jesus is designed as
“Christ the Son of David” (Mt 1:
1) that is, the anointed one of the Lord Son of
David, with whom
all the promises of God to David His servant, are fulfilled (2 Sam 7: 1-16; 2
Cr 7: 18; 2 Cr 21: 7; Ps 89: 30). This is why Matthew adds to the account of
the genealogy and of the conception of Jesus the prophecy of Isaiah: “All this
took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken through the prophet.: The young
woman is with child and will give birth to a son whom she will call Immanuel,
which means God with us” (Mt 1: 21-23 and Is 7: 14).
Let us stop to say something, on
the spiritual reality of adoption, we can refer to the fact that the elected
people possess “the glory, the covenants, the legislation, the cult, the
promises,” because “they are Israelites and possess the adoption of sons” (Rm
9: 4). But we also, the new people of God in Christ receive the adoption of
children because “when the completion of the time came God sent His Son, born
of a woman, born a subject of the Law, to redeem the subjects of the Law, so
that we could receive adoption as children” (Gal 4: 4-5). This is the salvation
which Jesus has brought to us. Christ “will save His people from their sins”
(Mt 1: 21) because He is the “God with us!” (Mt 1: 23) who makes us adopted
children of God.
Jesus is born from “Mary who was
betrothed to Joseph” (Mt 1: 18a)) who “was found to be with child through the
Holy Spirit” (Mt 1: 18b). Matthew does not give the account of the annunciation
as Luke does (Lk 1: 26-38) but structures the account from the point of view of
the experience of Joseph the just man. The Bible reveals to us that God loves
the just and many times chooses them for an important mission, protects them
and does not join them to the impious (Gen 18: 23ff). In the Old Testament we
find many persons who are considered just. We think of Noah “a good man, an
upright man among his contemporaries” (Gen 6: 9). Or also Johoash who “did what
Yahweh regards as right” (2 Kg 12: 3). A constant idea in the Bible is the
“dream” as a privileged place where God makes His plans and designs known, and
sometimes reveals the future. The dreams of Jacob at Bethel are well known (Gen
28: 10ff) and Joseph his son, as also those of the cup-bearer and the chief
baker imprisoned in Egypt with him (Gen 37: 5ff; Gen 40: 5ff) and the dreams of
Pharaoh which revealed the future years of plenty and of famine and want (Gen
41: 1ff).
“An Angel of the Lord“ appeared to Joseph (Mt 1: 20) to reveal
to him God’s design. In the Gospels of the infancy frequently the Angel of the
Lord is mentioned as the heavenly messenger (Mt 1: 20, 24; 2: 13, 19; Lk 1: 11;
2: 9) and also on other occasions the angel appears to calm, to reveal the
plans of God, to heal and to liberate from slavery (cf. Mt 28: 2; Jn 5: 4; Acts
5: 19; 8: 26; 12: 7, 23). Many are the references to the Angel of the Lord in
the Old Testament where originally the angel represented the Lord himself who
guided and protected His people being close to them (cf. Gen 16: 7-16; 22: 12;
24: 7; Ex 3: 3; 23: 20; Tb 5: 4). Questions
to orient the meditation and make it relevant:
•
What is the most important thing to you in this
passage? Why?
•
In the key to the reading, consideration is
given to some terms (adoption, angel, dream, just). What thoughts did these
raise in your heart? What relevance can they have for your journey of spiritual
maturation?
ORATIO
Psalm 92
It is good to give thanks to
Yahweh,
to make music for Your name,
Most High, to proclaim Your faithful love at daybreak, and Your constancy all
through the night, on the lyre, the tenstringed lyre, to the murmur of the
harp.
You have brought me joy,
Yahweh, by Your deeds, at the work of Your hands I cry out, 'How great are Your
works, Yahweh, immensely deep Your thoughts!' Stupid people cannot realize
this, fools do not grasp it.
The wicked may sprout like weeds,
and every evil-doer flourish, but only to be eternally destroyed; whereas You
are supreme for ever, Yahweh.
Look how Your enemies perish, how
all evil-doers are scattered!
You give me the strength of the wild
ox, You anoint me with fresh oil; I caught sight of the
ambush against me, overheard the plans of the wicked. The upright will flourish
like the palm tree, will grow like a cedar of Lebanon. Planted in the house of
Yahweh, they will flourish in the courts of our God. In old age they will still
bear fruit, will remain fresh and green, to proclaim Yahweh's integrity; my
rock, in whom no fault can be found. Moments
for a Prayerful Silence
CONTEMPLATIO
The Christian contemplation of God’s dream, of the plan
which God cherishes for the history of humanity does not produce alienation but
keeps the consciences vigilant and active and stimulates us to face with
courage and altruism the responsibilities which life gives us.
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