Press Communiqué

Saint Joseph and the anticipation of Christmas

A previously unpublished homily of Pope Benedict XVI released today

A collection of unpublished homilies of Benedict XVI will be published in 2024 by the Vatican Publishing House (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, LEV) edited by Fr. Federico Lombardi

The German Sunday newspaper Welt am Sonntag, linked to the German daily Die Welt, and L’Osservatore Romano have published today one of the hitherto unpublished homilies delivered by the Pope emeritus Benedict XVI during the private Sunday celebrations in the Chapel of the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery after his resignation. More precisely, it is the homily given on the fourth Sunday of Advent (liturgical cycle A) on 22 December 2013, dedicated mainly to the figure of Saint Joseph, presented by the Gospel text of the day.

As Fr. Federico Lombardi explained in the interview that accompanies the text published in Welt am Sonntag, there exists a collection of Benedict XVI’s “private” homilies, recorded and transcribed by the “Memores Domini” – the consecrated sisters who lived with him – which were recently entrusted by the executor of his will, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, to the Dicastery for Communication (Vatican Publishing House), in collaboration with the Joseph Ratzinger – Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation, with a view to their possible publication.

These homilies and their transcription had already been reported on a few occasions by Pope Benedict’s own Secretary, while the Pope himself had spoken some time before about the way he prepared them during the previous week. Welt am Sonntag therefore asked if it was possible to publish one of them on the occasion of Christmas, and the request was accepted.

The collection consists of more than thirty “private” homilies from the years of his pontificate and over a hundred from the first years subsequent to his resignation. They are in Italian and cover a large part – but not the whole – of the festive liturgical cycles, commenting on the texts proposed by the lectionary. Their preparation for publication by the Vatican Publication will be conducted by Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., over the coming months. It will not be a volume of exegetic or theological novelties, but rather a substantial spiritual nourishment, along the lines of the homiletic genre cultivated with care and profound priestly spirit by Joseph Ratzinger throughout his life.

Homily of Benedict XVI

Private Chapel – Mater Ecclesiae Monastery

22.12.2013 Fourth Sunday of Advent

Gospel: Mt 1:18-24

Dear friends,

Alongside Mary, Mother of the Lord, and Saint John the Baptist, today the liturgy presents to us a third figure, in whom Advent is almost personified, a figure that incorporates Advent: Saint Joseph. Meditating on the text of the Gospel we can see, it seems to me, three constitutive elements of this vision.

The first and decisive is that Saint Joseph is called “a righteous man”. This is for the Old Testament the highest characterization of one who truly lives according to the word of God, who lives the covenant with God.

To understand this well, we must think about the difference between the Old and New Testament.

The fundamental act of a Christian is the encounter with Jesus, in Jesus with the word of God, who is Person. By encountering Jesus, we encounter the truth, the love of God, and in this way the relationship of friendship becomes love, our communion with God grows, we are really believers and we become holy.

The fundamental act of the Old Testament is different, because Christ was still in the future and so at best it was going towards Christ, but it was not yet a true encounter as such. The word of God in the Old Testament substantially has the form of the law – “Torah”. God guides, this is the meaning; God shows us the way. It is a path of education that forms man according to God and makes him capable of encountering Christ. In this sense, this justice, this way of living in accordance with the law is a journey towards Christ, reaching towards Him; but the fundamental act is observance of the Torah, the law, and thus being “righteous”.

Saint Joseph is a righteous man, again exemplary of the Old Testament.

But here there is a danger and a promise together, an open door.

The danger appears in Jesus’ conversations with the pharisees and above all in the letters of Saint Paul. The danger is that if the word of God is substantially law, it is to be considered as a sum of prescriptions and prohibitions, a set of rules, and the attitude to adopt should therefore be that of observing the rules and thus being correct. But if religion is thus, that is all it is; a personal relationship with God is not born, and man remains in himself, he seeks to perfect himself, to be perfect. But in this way bitterness arises, as we see in the second son of the parable of the prodigal son who, having observed everything, in the end is bitter and even a little jealous of the brother who, as he thinks, he had life in abundance. This is the danger: the mere observance of the law becomes impersonal, just a question of doing; man becomes hard and even bitter. In the end one cannot love this God, who presents himself only as laws and even at times with threats. This is the danger.

Instead, the promise is: we can also see these prescriptions not only as a codex, a set of rules, but as an expression of God’s will, in which God speaks with me, I speak with Him. By entering into this law, I enter into dialogue with God, I learn God’s countenance, I begin to see God and hence I journey towards the word of God in person, towards Christ. And a truly righteous man such as Saint Joseph is like this: for him the law is not simple observance of the rules, but it is presented as a word of love, an invitation to dialogue, and life according to the word is entering into this dialogue and finding God’s love behind the rules and in the rules, understanding that all these rules are not for their own sake, but are rules of love; the serve to make love grow in me. In this way one understands that finally all the law is just love of God and neighbour. Having found this, one has observed the whole law. If one lives in this dialogue with God, dialogue of love in which one seeks the face of God, in which one looks for love and makes it understood that everything is dictated by love, then one is on the way towards Christ, one is righteous. Saint Joseph is a truly righteous man, so in him the Old Testament becomes new, because in the words he seeks God, the person, he seeks His love, and all observance is life in love.

We see it in the example that this Gospel offers us. Saint Joseph, betrothed to Mary, finds out that she is expecting a baby. We can imagine his disappointment: he knew this girl and the depth of her relationship with God, her inner beauty, the extraordinary purity of her heart; he saw the love of God and the love of His word, of His truth, shining through her and now he finds himself gravely disappointed. What is to be done? Now, the law offers two possibilities, in which the two paths appear, the dangerous, fatal one, and that of promise. He can sue before the court and thus expose Mary to shame, destroy her as a person. He can do so privately with a letter of separation. And Saint Joseph, a truly righteous man, even though he suffered greatly, comes to the decision to take this path, which is a path of love in justice, of justice in love, and Saint Matthew tells us that he struggled with himself, in himself with the word. In this struggle, in this journey to understand the true will of God, he found the unity between love and rule, between justice and love, and so, on his way to Jesus, he is open for the appearance of the angel, open for the fact that God gives him the knowledge that this is the work of the Holy Spirit.

Saint Hilary of Poitier, in the fourth century, once, dealing with the fear of God, said at the end: “All our fear is placed in love”; it is only one aspect, one nuance of love. So, we can say here for us: the whole law is placed in love, it is an expression of love and must be fulfilled by entering into the logic of love. And here we must bear in mind that, even for us Christians, there is the same temptation, the same danger that existed in the Old Testament: even a Christian can arrive at an attitude in which the Christian religion is seen as a set of rules, prohibitions and positive norms, of prescriptions. One can arrive at the idea that it is only a matter of carrying out impersonal prescriptions and thus perfecting oneself, but in this way, one empties the personal background of the word of God and arrives at a certain bitterness and hardness of heart. In the history of the Church, we see this in Jansenism. We too all know this danger, we too personally know that we must always again overcome this danger and find the Person and, in the love of the Person, the way of life and the joy of faith. To be righteous is to find this way, and so we too are actually always again on the way from the Old Testament to the New Testament in the search for the Person, for the face of God in Christ. This is precisely what Advent is: to come out of the pure norm towards the encounter with love, to come out of the Old Testament, which becomes New.

This, therefore, is the first and fundamental element of the figure of Saint Joseph as he appears in today’s Gospel. Now two brief words on the second and third elements.

The second: he sees in the dream of the angel, and he listens to the message. This presupposes an inner sensibility for God, a capacity to perceive the voice of God, a gift of discernment, that knows how to discern between dreams that are dreams, and a true encounter with God. Only because Saint Joseph was already on the path towards the Person in the Word, towards the Lord, towards the Saviour, was he able to discern; God was able to speak with him and he understood: this is not a dream, it is truth, it is the apparition of His angel. And in this way he was able to discern and to decide.

For us too this sensitivity towards God is important, this capacity to perceive that God speaks with me, and this capacity for discernment. Certainly, God does not speak normally with us, as he spoke through the angel with Joseph, but He has His ways of speaking with us too. They are signs of God’s tenderness, which we must perceive in order to find joy and consolation; they are words of invitation, love, even the request to encounter people who suffer, who need my word or my concrete gesture, a deed. Here it is necessary to be sensitive, to know God’s voice, to understand that now God is talking to me, and to answer.

And so we arrive at the third point: Saint Joseph’s response to the word of the angel is faith, and then obedience. Faith: he understood that this was really the voice of God, it was not a dream. Faith becomes a foundation on which to act, on which to live, it is to recognize that this is the voice of God, the imperative of love, which guides me on the path of life, and then to do God's will. Saint Joseph was not a dreamer, although the dream was the door through which God entered his life. He was a practical and sober man, a man of decision, capable of organization. It was not easy - I think - to find in Bethlehem, because there was no room in the houses, the stable as a discreet and protected place and, despite the poverty, worthy for the birth of the Saviour. To organize the flight to Egypt, to find somewhere to sleep every day, to live for a long time: this demanded a practical man with a sense of action, with the ability to respond to challenges, to find ways to survive. And then on his return, the decision to return to Nazareth, to establish the homeland of the Son of God here, this too shows that he was a practical man, who as a carpenter lived and made everyday life possible.

In this way Saint Joseph invites us on the one hand to this inner journey in the word of God, to be ever closer to the person, to the Lord, but at the same time he invites us to a sober life, to work, to service every day in order to do our duty in the great mosaic of history.

Let us thank God for the beautiful figure of Saint Joseph. Let us pray: “Lord help us be open to You, to find Your face more and more, to love You, to find love in the law, to be rooted, fulfilled in love. Open us to the gift of discernment, to the ability to listen to You and to the sobriety of living according to Your will and in our vocation”. Amen!