Host: Welcome to Saint Patrick Catholic Community Podcast. We're glad you're with us.
Fr. Stephan: Do you know any righteous people like Joseph? He was a righteous man. I think of my father. Now he wasn't perfect, but he was a righteous man. And also, like Joseph, he was a quiet man, at least to me.
Now, I'm one of the young ones in the family, so he may have been very loud to my older brothers and told them a lot of things, but came when I came around on the twelfth child, you know, I was just one of them. And, but I remember giving my dad a call. Hi, dad. How are doing? Fine.
What's going on? Oh, not much. Do I talk to your mother? Okay. I'll I'll talk to my mom.
And that was it. That's all I could talk to my dad. When I go visit him, I had to force him to tell me these things, you know. But he doesn't say a lot of words. Very quiet, but he was he was always a person of prayer.
He prayed a lot. And when when all the kids were gone, when I go visit my parents, they're always around the the kitchen table praying their prayers. He was constantly praying. So I know he's a righteous man, a holy man. By thought of that in the experience of Joseph we heard in the gospel today.
You know, Joseph, it says he was a very righteous man, but he was also a quiet man because nowhere in the scriptures does he speak. He doesn't say a word in the scriptures. Yet his his life itself spoke volumes. And today, he was trying to teach us and through his own example, how the importance of prayer and what's how to pray. That's what our theme for the parish here is teach us to pray.
Lord, teach us to pray. Well, here he teaches us, first of all, you don't need many words. What you need to do is to listen, trust in God, and then put into action what you hear from God. That's what's happening in the gospel. Here's Joseph.
His life is now his world is now overturned. He finds out that the woman he's in betrothed to, which is more than engagement, but not quite marriage yet. So it's getting there, and this woman is pregnant, and it's not his. He was thinking, okay, being a righteous man, he had every right to be angry and make a public offense what she did, but he doesn't. He was he's then quietly divorced her.
But then something happens. He pauses, takes a deep breath, and in his time of relaxing, just quiet reflection, he pauses, and that pause is prayer. In that prayer, God speaks. And God does not go go into a lot of expected explanation what this is go what's going on and what all that should do, but what really telling him is, I'm assuring you, I'm assure you, do not be afraid. This is not a problem to be solved.
It's a promise to be fulfilled. The promise we heard in the first reading and that reference in the gospel that a virgin will be with child and give birth to Emmanuel, God with us. And here's Joseph hearing this. Now he's beginning to look at differently as he trusts in God. God God cares for him, loves him, that this Emmanuel, he's now gonna be the guardian of God's presence.
He listens intently. I would have so many questions. I would have so many we argue with God that can't be possible. But not him. He just trusts that God is speaking to him.
God's gonna fulfill a promise, something he did not expect at all. So what happens is after trusting in God and listening to God, that God's with him, Emmanuel is with him, that he wakes up from this prayer dream and puts into action what was told him. So he immediately takes Mary to his home. That's part of the marriage ritual. Eventually, you take your wife home.
He takes her home. Emmanuel, God with us. God's with us always in our homes, in our hearts, in our community, in our struggles, in our questions that are unanswerable. God is with us in all that. And we're invited today to be quiet, to quiet our hearts and listen to God.
God wants to speak to us, and then God wants us to put into action what he tells us. I was speaking to a man recently. I see once in a while, he comes to our church, and I, you know, just we're talking, I said, what are gonna do for Christmas? He said, well, my brother invited me to his house for Christmas. He's a widower.
He goes, but, you know, I have someone living with me, an older a younger man than him, who's in the early sixties, who's very ill, who was his wife's a good friend of his wife's. So he he decided to take him into his home and to carry you know, he has a place to go whether being homeless. But he as he as he's I said that he said I I was I was praying. I heard God said, why would he leave him for Christmas? Why would he leave him?
He goes, he said, father, so I said, I I I told my brother, I'll see you the day after Christmas. I'm gonna take this guy out for a nice meal on Christmas day. So he's not alone on Christmas. He said, father, is that okay? As if I have anything to say about it.
But so what do you think God wants you to do that? Yeah. I think God's telling me to do that. Then listen to God. Because when God speaks to us and believe me, God is always speaking to us.
We just wanna listen to him. God's always inviting us to show compassion, to show mercy. Yes. Even to forgive the person who keeps bothering you. God is speaking to us and because God speaks to us, God says I am with you.
The promise is fulfilled. I have come to save you. In Jesus, the word Jesus means one who comes to save. You see, Emmanuel, God with us, comes to save us. But the invitation for us, are we listening to the one who's here with us?
It's easy to think that we do when everything goes my way. Obviously, God's listening to me. But the most struggle difficult part is, when it's not going my way, what is God asking of me? Is a problem to be solved, Or is there a promise that God's there, that God won't lead me, that God will save me in this? What is it?
Do I see a problem, or do I see a fulfillment of a promise? We gather today around the table of the Lord, being nourished by God's grace. But more importantly, be nourished to show God's compassion, to show God's mercy, to show God's forgiveness. I heard someone say to me when we were just visiting, and he said to me, you know, this so and so at my job, she always, always bothers me. I don't think she likes me.
So okay. He said, so I I just keep avoiding her. So, well, you can you can do that, and we can all do that. Right? Avoid the person who bothers me.
So, well, are you praying for her? Well, I mean I mean, she doesn't need my prayer. Yes. She needs your prayers. Because we're always asking to change something in our hearts.
I'd be satisfied that I'm right and you're wrong, but never to be satisfied because we're always listening to God. As you prepare for Christmas, it's only three days Christmas Eve, Christmas three days away, Let's open our hearts and take time in prayer to listen to God. As I've I've been telling people throughout this Advent, take one minute, just one minute of silence to listen to God. Father Eric said he told people ten minutes. I said one.
I'm not as harsh as he is. And just listen. What is God saying? What's God's fulfilled by the promise he's given you? And then when it comes time for Christmas, let's put that prayer into action.
Host: This has been a Saint Patrick Catholic Community podcast. For more of our shows, go to our website and click Saint Patrick's Studio.