On the threshold of Christmas, the liturgy of the Fourth Sunday of Advent (Cycle A) stops us abruptly. We are not yet before the manger, but before the inner conflict of a man. The Gospel of Matthew (1:18-24) presents us with Joseph, the “righteous man,” faced with a mystery that humanly overwhelms him.
In a current culture that idolizes certainty and digital noise, the figure of Joseph and the exegesis that Saint Augustine makes of him offer us a vital key to understanding Christmas: the primacy of love over biology.
The Dilemma of the Just: Beyond the Law
The Matthean text is sober but dramatic. Mary, betrothed to Joseph, is found to be pregnant “through the Holy Spirit” before they lived together. Joseph, described as dikaios (just), decides to repudiate her in secret.
Here lies the first theological tension that we must observe:
His justice is not the cold legalism that would demand public denunciation.
It is a superior justice, a preventive mercy.
Joseph senses that he is before something sacred that he does not understand and prefers to withdraw before profaning the mystery or harming Mary.
The Augustinian Reading: Pater non carnis, sed caritatis
It is here that the theology of the Bishop of Hippo sheds a definitive light, especially in his Sermon 51, dedicated to the genealogy of Christ. Augustine confronts the critics of his time who questioned why the Gospel traces the genealogy of Jesus through Joseph if he was not his biological father.
The Augustinian response is of profound anthropological relevance: fatherhood is not defined exclusively by the flesh, but by affection and helpful authority.
Saint Augustine argues forcefully:
“Joseph is a father: all the more firmly a father the more chastely a father […] What the Holy Spirit worked, he worked for both. The man is just, the woman is just. The Holy Spirit, relying on the justice of both, gave the son to both” (Sermon 51, 20).
For the Augustinian tradition, to deny Joseph’s fatherhood would be to deny the strength of conjugal love. The angel, by ordering him to “name” the child (“you shall call his name Jesus”), is granting him full legal and paternal authority. Joseph is not a passive actor; he is a father by right of love.
The “Dream” as a Space of Interior Revelation
The Gospel tells us that the Angel spoke to him “in dreams.” This resonates with the need for Augustinian interiority (“Noli foras ire, in te ipsum redi”). God did not speak to Joseph in the tumult, but in silence, in the intimacy of consciousness.
Joseph, upon awakening, “did as the angel had commanded him.” His response is not a speech, it is an action.
He accepts Mary and the Child.
He accepts that his life no longer belongs to him.
He becomes a real participant in the Incarnation.
As Augustine reminds us: “From the piety and charity of Joseph, a son was born to him from the Virgin Mary, who was also the Son of God” (Sermon 51, 30).
Conclusion: Our own “Fatherhood”
This Fourth Sunday of Advent invites us to redefine our responsibilities. Like Joseph, we often face situations that we have not planned, “pregnancies” of reality that frighten us.
The lesson is clear: true justice consists in welcoming reality with charity, protecting fragile life and trusting that, even in uncertainty, Emmanuel (God with us) is acting.
By: web editor, Province of Candelaria
Bibliographic References
Jerusalem Bible. (2019). Gospel according to Saint Matthew. Desclée de Brouwer.
Saint Augustine. (1983). Sermon 51: On the concordance of the evangelists Matthew and Luke in the genealogy of the Lord. In Complete Works of Saint Augustine (Vol. X). BAC.
Brown, R. E. (2002). The birth of the Messiah. Cristiandad.
Benedict XVI. (2012). The childhood of Jesus. Planeta.
