Matthew 1:24

When Joseph woke up he did what the angel of the Lord had told him to do: he took his wife to his home.

Did you know that Saint Joseph is the Protector of the Order of St Augustine?

As we can read on the Order website www.augustinians.net, the General Chapter of 1491 decreed: "In all the houses and monasteries of our Order the Office of Saint Joseph, whose feast is the 19th of March, is to be celebrated." In 1722 the Order obtained the faculty of celebrating the patronage of Saint Joseph on the third Sunday of Easter, following the practice of the Recollect and Discalced Congregations of the Order which had obtained this privilege in 1700.

Quoting Matthew 1, Saint Augustine describes “Joseph's genuine sense of justice” in his Sermon 51.

“You see, the people who want to undermine the credit of the books of the gospels are always ready to make fun of what follows, as though to show us how simple we are to believe what it says: When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit. But Joseph her husband, being a just man and unwilling to disgrace her, wished to break off the engagement quietly (Mt 1:18-19). Because he knew she wasn't pregnant by him, he naturally concluded she had committed adultery.

Being a just man, as the scripture says, and unwilling to disgrace her—that is, make a public example of her, which is what many copies say —he wished to break off the engagement quietly. He is upset as a husband, of course, but as a just man he does not fall into a rage. This man is credited with such a keen sense of justice, that he would neither agree to have an adulteress as his wife, nor venture to punish her by publicising the matter. He wished, it says, to break off the engagement quietly; he was unwilling not only to punish her, but even to put her to shame.

Observe how genuine his sense of justice was. The reason he wished to spare her was not that he was eager to have her. After all, many men spare their adulterous wives out of carnal love, wanting to keep them in spite of then adultery, in order to enjoy them in carnal desire. But this just man does not want to keep her, and thus his love for her is not carnal; and yet he doesn't want to punish her either, and thus he is sparing her out of compassion. What a just man indeed he is! He doesn't keep an adulterous wife, in case he should seem to spare her because he loves her in a lustful manner; and yet he neither punishes her nor exposes her to shame. Rightly indeed was he chosen to bear witness to his wife's virginity. So while he was made uneasy by human weakness, he was reassured by divine authority.”

The Sermons of St Augustine are surely not texts that many of us have on our bedside table. Perhaps is it even the first time we are reading one.

Encouraged by St Augustine's words on Joseph, we pray to God to give us this sense of justice, for not letting anger decide when someone upsets us.

The angel of the Lord might not appear in our dreams tonight, but we can start developing our capacity to listen to God - our Interiority, through Contemplative Prayer. It will help us understand our inner struggles. It will help us understand why people act not as we wish they would, and accept it. It will help us draw close to God and be more able to hear God's voice.

A meditation written by Marie O'Grady, project manager at St Augustine's Centre, a space for spirituality and education

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