Isaiah 61.9-11 / Matthew 1.18-21, 24-25

On this January 23, Stigmatine missionaries around the world celebrate our patron saints, the Holy Spouses Mary and Joseph. On this feast, let us reflect on the readings from the Liturgy of the Word.

Today the evangelist Matthew tells us about the announcement of the angel of the Lord to Joseph in a dream. The messenger explained to Mary's betrothed that She was the virgin Who would be with child and would bear the Emmanuel, God is with us, through the Holy Spirit.

Before this explanation, Joseph had decided to divorce Mary quietly, when he realized that she was with child and that he was not his.

After this explanation, Joseph did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife Mary into his home.

The angel of the Lord helped Joseph understand that his sponsalia with Mary would go beyond the expectations of merely human love. Joseph understood that the mission the Lord entrusted to him was to assume the paternity of the Son of God and to care for Him and His Mother. It would be a sponsalia lived in chastity and purity. And Joseph, like Mary, gave his consent to God.

Today the prophet Isaiah speaks to us of the descendants of the Servant of the Lord, that mysterious character through whom, through his suffering, God would be reconciling sinners with Himself. They would be renowned among the peoples as "a race the Lord has blessed." The prophet says that there would be heartily joy in the Lord, because God clothed His Servant with salvation and justice. Isaiah uses the comparison of the bridegroom adorned with his diadem and the bride bedecked with her jewels. The prophet concludes by saying that the Lord GOD would make justice and praise spring up before all the nations, as a garden makes its growth spring up.

On this feast of the Holy Spouses Mary and Joseph, we can say that - in view of the salvation of humanity through the incarnation of Christ - God adorned the adoptive father of Jesus with the virtues necessary to be an excellent husband, and that He bedecked the biological Mother of Jesus with the indispensable qualities to be a sublime wife. Mary and Joseph are renowned among the peoples as the couple the Lord has blessed. They were clothed with salvation and justice and were the cause of heartily joy in the Lord.

The sponsalia of Mary and Joseph was not the result of chance, but was desired and prepared by God, with the consent of both. In order for them to be able to carry out the mission they had received from God, Mary needed Joseph and Joseph needed Mary.

It was a sponsalia filled with human love and lived in the light of faith. Mary was a virgin and Joseph was chaste. Both lived their vocation in purity, with concrete manifestations of love and care, in the sacred company of the Son of God in the home of Nazareth, in Galilee.

From this perspective, the Stigmatine devotion to the Holy Spouses Mary and Joseph, practiced and proposed by Saint Gaspar Bertoni, is an inspiration for living the vocation to consecrated life in the congregation, particularly in the vow of chastity.

Saint Gaspar Bertoni wanted the members of the Stigmatine congregation to be "monks at home and apostles outside." In community life, in the local community, we have the model and intercession of the Holy Spouses Mary and Joseph, who are the patrons of the congregation, who intercede for the mission of the Stigmatines spread throughout the world.

Local: Corumbataí, SP, 13540-000, Brasil

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