TEXT: The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew 2:13-15; and, 2:19-23

It has been said by Pope Saint Gregory the Great that -- "In other sacrifices the flesh of another is slain, but in obedience our own will is sacrificed."  This it was so for the Holy Family.  We owe a great debt of gratitude for their sacrificial obedience in listening to the angel of the LORD.

The Holy Family, like many of us, was not spared trials and sufferings.  The Christ Child’s life was threatened.  Later the Holy Family had to become displaced persons in a foreign land from which their people, the Israelites, had been delivered from slavery and oppression generations before.

Yet, these specially and uniquely graced people, Joseph and Mary, met their trials with grace.  Truly we can hear the words of the Psalm -- "Happy are those who fear the LORD and walk in his ways.

Let us hear this simple, but profound, story today and receive of the graces that are provided by God through the examples of Joseph and Mary in obedience to God.

13  When they had departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt,  and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him."
14 Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt.
15  He stayed there until the death of Herod, that what the Lord had said through the prophet might be fulfilled, "Out of Egypt I called my son."

St. John Chrysostom tells us of Joseph’s faithfulness and obedience -- "On hearing this, Joseph was not scandalized, nor did he say, ‘This is hard to understand.  You yourself told me not long ago that he would save his people, and now he is not able to save even himself.  Indeed we have to flee and undertake a journey and be away for a long time . . . ’.  But he does not say any of these things, because Joseph is a faithful man.  Neither does he ask when they will be coming back, even though the angel had left it open when he said, ‘and remain there till I tell you.’  This does not hold him back: on the contrary, he obeys, believes and endures all the trials with joy."  (The homily on St. Matthew, 8).

Many time, beloved of Christ, it is God who allows the mixture of the pleasant things of life with the unpleasant things, as he does with all of the saints.

The good and the bad come into every life.

How will we meet the trials of life?

St. Paul says to us -- "No trial has come to you but what is human.  God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength; but with the trial he will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it."  (I Corinthians 10:13).

How we need to hear this and remember those words.

Yes, we also must remember that Joseph and Mary, the Holy Family, was tried severely.  It was no easy journey to make in those days to Egypt.  This was to a land that was the former slave master of Israel.  This was the land that was the reason for the Passover Feast.  This was a fountainhead of idolatry, as the pyramids and the images of the "gods" and "goddesses" of Egypt attest.  Yet, the angel of the LORD said to St. Joseph -- Flee to Egypt.

There is great grace is Joseph’s obedience and that of our Lady, the Mother of Jesus.

Hosea 11:1 speaks of a child who comes out of Egypt and is a son of God.  "When Israel was a child, I loved him, out of Egypt I have called my son."  What a perfect identification we have here, because of the obedience of Joseph and Mary for the identification of Jesus with the Israel of God!

It was through Joseph and Mary that Jesus is going to be called the Son of the Most High.  Out of Egypt I have called my SON!

The law was given by Moses, but, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ!

Yet, how did Mary and Joseph meat the challenges of their trials?  It was through GRACE.  "Happy are you who fear (trust) the LORD and walk in his ways," says the Psalm today.

Oh, that you and I would receive of these graces.

These are graces to meet the trials that come to us.

For, "you shall eat of the fruit of your handiwork; happy shall you be and favored."

Mary and Joseph were highly favored of God.

Shall we not become highly favored of God, if we trust in God alone and find in him the graces as did Mary and Joseph, when they obeyed the words of the LORD and cooperated in the redemptive plan of God through Jesus Christ our Lord?
Is it any wonder to us as Catholics that Joseph is the patron saint of the Church, and, Mary is the Mother of the Church?  God has exalted them and blessed them.  The "Way out" is provided in Christ.

Sometimes it is necessary for us to enter Egypt so that God may show to us the Way in Christ -- our "Way out" through the trials of life.

St. Francis de Sales said -- "The exercise of continual abandonment of one’s self to the hands of God includes in the most excellent manner all other exercises in their greatest simplicity, purity, and, perfection."

Yes, and the little things matter as well.  We must start with the "little things" and move to the largest things in our lives.

God makes haste slowly, sometimes, but God does make haste to save!

Therefore,

19 When Herod had died, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt
20 and said, "Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child's life are dead."
21 He rose, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel.

Here was perfect obedience again, and the obvious perfect obedience by Mary.

Listen to St. Catherine of Sienna’s words of our LORD -- "I can love you more that you can love yourself and I watch over you a thousand times more carefully than you can watch over yourself.  The more trustfully you give yourself up to Me, the more I shall be watching over you; you will gain a clearer knowledge of Me by experience My love more and more joyfully."

God has a plan, beloved, a plan for every one of us.  Will we cooperate?

May God grant us the grace to do so, and, may we choose to cooperate with that grace!

22 But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod,  he was afraid to go back there. And because he had been warned in a dream, he departed for the region of Galilee.
23  He went and dwelt in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, "He shall be called a Nazorean."

Often, we have the resident graces to make choices to cooperate fully with the LORD’s direction through making choices.  Joseph knew the treachery of the Herodian family.  This family of Herod’s was not a "holy" family at all.  It was a "hateful" family.  Joseph understood this and used WISDOM in dwelling in Nazareth.

By using WISDOM, he was fulfilling another "summarized" prophecy, as St. Jerome points out in his Commentary on Isaiah to us of  -- Isaiah 11:1 with the use of the word "netzer," meaning "root."  Jerome tells us that Jesus is the fulfilment of the Isaiah 11:1 use of this word, the "shoot" of which comes the entire race of Abraham and David.

I like the way this reads -- " . . . that what had been spoken through the prophets might be
fulfilled, "He shall be called a Nazorean."  (Ut adimpleretur, quod dictum est per prophetas: ‘Nazaraeus vocabitur.’ ").  This was a summarized understanding of the prophets that Isaiah 11:1 provides us in this word -- "netzer." -- "netzerean".

Yes, and again, this wisdom from God was supplemented by another dream by Joseph, a warning.  He, therefore obeyed again and moved the Holy Family to Galilee.

It is wonderful to note that it was here again that Mary had first heard the Annunciation (Luke 1:26).  This was the place of her most significant obedience, an obedience with which we would never have seen our Savior.  How God, though, had prepared this Virgin of virgins for the greatest obedience, a woman would ever be graced to perform.  Thus, her obedience brought forth the Blessed Savior of us all, Jesus, the Fruit of the womb of Mary.

May God bless us with those graces of Mary and Joseph as we meet with grace the trials that come to us.  May we receive the grace to cooperate with grace.



Deus et Sanctissima.