INTERIOR SILENCE A PRE-REQUISITE IN MAKING CRITICAL DECISIONS (18

December, 2020)

Today’s gospel we hear about St. Joseph. In the story of Christmas St. Joseph plays a minor role.
In fact, he disappeared from the gospel scene before Jesus was baptized. However, even if we
could not find any written word of St. Joseph in the gospel, his character stands out.

In the gospel, Joseph was presented with a big challenge when he found Mary, already
betrothed to him, was with child. 

We can imagine what went on in the mind of Joseph. What was happening? Could Mary have
betrayed him? Could it truly be a divine intervention and a work of the Holy Spirit as Mary told
him? But it was totally unheard of – a woman conceiving a child without a man! No one would
ever believe in Mary or even in him. They would be ridiculed. 

 So we can appreciate the confusion of Joseph when he heard that Mary had conceived by
the power of the Holy Spirit.
 However, the challenge was just an aspect of the struggle that Joseph had to deal with.

There was the other practical consideration of what to do with Mary. The gospel tells us
that Joseph was a just man. He did not want to accuse Mary wrongly.  But at the same time,
how could he prove that her child was conceived by the Holy Spirit? 

 To surrender her to the law and have her charged for adultery would not be just because
he had no proof that she betrayed him. On the other hand, he had no way to prove that the
child was truly from God. 
 True to his sense of justice, the evangelist wrote, “her husband Joseph, being a man of
honour and wanting to spare her publicity, decided to divorce her informally.” In this
way, she would be saved from being stoned to death. She would be given time to prove
and verify the truth of what she claimed as a divine intervention.

It is very remarkable how Joseph reacted to this challenge. He was a man who thought
through his problems, bringing them to God in prayer.

 He was not just as a just man, but calm, level-headed, sombre, and never reactive or
retaliatory. It was in his nature to want to find the best solution for all. Even for those
who hurt him, he would want to save their dignity and find a way out for them so that
they would not be condemned and have no opportunity to repent.

This was possible because Joseph was a man of prayer. Joseph was able to handle such a big
challenge because he was a man of prayer and contemplation. He was a man who thought
through his problems, bringing them to God in prayer. Before he acted, he would make time to
pray and bring the issue to the Lord.

Unlike Joseph, what we see among us today is people reacting to everything they see, or hear, or
read.

Facing challenge is part of our life, maybe not as big as that of Joseph. But we have our fair
share of feeling betrayed by our loved ones, friends, colleagues and business partners. In such
difficult moments, we often react with anger, disbelief and fear. How could someone whom we
love so much betray us? How could my spouse betray my love? How could my good friend
betray my trust? It is unthinkable that they could be so heartless. In our state of anger and rage,
we retaliate, take revenge

Those who hurt us must be disgraced in public, they must be condemned. We don’t give them
opportunity to repent. We fall into the sin of presumption or that of self-righteousness- we feel
that we have never committed such an offence before.

We have to ask ourselves: are we reacting out of our fears, our past conditioning, our prejudices,
our hurts and old wounds? 

 Indeed, when we simply react without thinking and self-awareness, it shows that we are
no better than those who acted wrongly. When you react that way, then what’s difference
between you and the person who offended you?
 Sometimes our reaction, revenge, retaliation shows that we are devoid of the peaceful
presence of God in our lives.
 We should not become another problem to a problem. Indeed, are we a solution or a
problem?

Today, we are called to imitate Joseph. Like Joseph we are called to be prayerful and
contemplative. Before we acted, react, revenge, let us take time to pray and bring the issue to
the Lord. Let us always think through our problems and bring them to God in prayer. In prayer,
the Lord will speak to us.

Because Joseph brought the matter to the Lord, the situation was clarified when the angel of the
Lord appeared to him in a dream. The Lord clarified the mystery for him and confirmed the
words of Mary. The Lord revealed to Joseph how the child would be the fulfillment of the
prophecies of the Old Testament.

We, too, must also do likewise, otherwise we become worse than those who betrayed us.
Indeed, as we approach Christmas, many of us are so busy with Christmas preparations, at least
the material ones, the decorations, the Christmas tree, shopping for gifts and attending Christmas
functions and parties.

We must not forget to enter into the silence of the Christmas night when the little baby was born
in the manger, unknown and unrecognized. It was in the silence of the night that His birth was
announced by the angels to poor uneducated shepherds in the fields. We need to make room for
Him in our hearts by withdrawing from the hurly burly of the world into the silence of God. He
wants to refresh us with His love, joy and peace.

In this way, we too will conceive Jesus in our hearts and we become the Emmanuel of God to
others as we reach out to touch lives.