A Spirituality of Silence

Today is the Solemnity of Saint Joseph. When I was in Seminary, we would pray that March 19 would fall on a Friday in Lent, so that we could skirt around the Lenten Fast for one day. This year I am sure that "meat starving" Seminarians across the world are rejoicing!

Saint Joseph is one of the most fascinating characters in Scripture, to me anyways. We don't know very much about him. We know what town he is from, tradition holds that he was a carpenter, he was Husband to Mary, present at the early events of Jesus' life, and then he disappears from the face of history.

His spirituality however is one worth looking at. I like to call it a Spirituality of silence. Joseph himself never speaks in Scripture, not even once. He has no powerful lines, or thoughtful expressions that we can quote or meditate on. What we do know is, he is a man of action, and certainly a deep faith.

He discovers that his wife is pregnant, supposedly with a Divine child. He considers a divorce; as for him to marry a pregnant woman would bring nothing but scandal and gossip upon he and his family. He plans to do so quietly, so as to retain Mary’s dignity, however, an angel advises him not to. She fills Joseph in on the Divine plan of God, and Joseph, without question or debate, takes Mary into his home.

After the birth of Jesus he is guided by a dream to take the newborn Jesus and Mary and flee to Egypt, as Herod is unleashing a mass laughter of all the newborn males in Bethlehem. Again without question or debate, he follows these instructions, and returns to Nazareth after an angel informs him again that it is safe to do so.

He maintains silence throughout the entire story. Even when Jesus is lost in the temple, it is Mary who verbally rebukes Jesus for wandering away from the family on their journey home from Jerusalem. “Your father and I have been looking for you.” Joseph says nothing, and his opinion is not even noted.

He disappears with an equal silence. We know nothing of his death. There are various traditions and tales. There are stained glass windows that show Jesus as a teenager holding His dying father in His arms. There are paintings of Joseph fashioning tables and chairs in his carpentry shop, but the reality of it is we have no idea.

That’s the point of Joseph’s spirituality that we can draw from Scripture. Or I should say, that’s the spirituality that can be molded from Joseph’s story. We should follow the calling of the Lord in silent faith and trust. We know he was an ordinary man, who was obedient to his faith and the law. It was in obedience to the law that he went to Bethlehem to begin with, that he presented the child Jesus in the temple at the proper age, and that they went on the prescribed journey to the temple in Jerusalem.

He lives his day-to-day life as a faithful, law abiding, gentleman. When the time came for him to make the difficult decisions, he made choices that were in consideration of others, but listened to the voice of the Lord when he needed to adjust his plans. By living this simple and silent life, he has ended up the Patron Saint of the Universal Church, and nearly every culture holds him in high regard. There are churches throughout the world that bear his name, and his Feast day in the Church is among the few regarded as a “Solemnity”. All this esteem is regarded to a man who never spoke a word worth history recording, and who is depicted as a gray haired old man, in a purple and brown robe, holding a walking staff.

Sound familiar? We may never speak a word worth history’s acknowledgement either. We go through our day-to-day lives trying our best to follow the laws of the land, our faith, and our conscious. The next step, is to listen for the voice of the Lord when we least expect it; even in those times when we think we already are making the right choice.