A dream changed Joseph’s life and ours. A mere dream, like what you and I have at night.
How trustworthy could this be?
And yet the safety of Mary and the child Jesus depended on it. In his dream (Gospel), an angel told him that Mary’s pregnancy was from the Holy Spirit of God. Mary had accepted readily but without really understanding. This angel of the Lord told him in the dream that he should not be afraid of the pregnancy, even though he was not yet married to this woman.
Not be afraid? Already everyone could see that Joseph’s fiancé was “in a family way.” USA culture might applaud this fact, as it does when movie stars have children with whomever they please whenever they please. In Biblical culture marriage was a sacred act [and not too long ago in our own], a participation in God’s own fidelity. It seemed that Mary had broken with that fidelity, at least as far as the townspeople could see. The Blessed Mother a public sinner! No wonder Joseph was making arrangements for a “quiet divorce.”
So why in the world would Joseph reverse himself and trust a dream? Do you trust dreams? A friend of mine had one about a kangaroo sitting on the roof in a rocking chair smoking a pipe! Should my friend check the roof for rocking chairs or pipe smoke, just in case? Of course not. We take a dream for what it is, a mechanism of our psyche that somehow processes our experience but does not give us literal truth. We do not usually rely on them for life-changing messages.
Joseph did. Why? I think the answer has to do with something St. Ignatius of Loyola calls “discernment.”
In general, discernment is an examination of one’s internal reactions (“movements of spirit”), especially in prayer. Of course there are many different movements, but there is one that may describe Joseph’s dream: sometimes, rarely, grace is so gently strong that the person praying has an inner assurance that the experience did not come from imagination but from God. Somehow it is impossible to doubt it.
You and I have to be careful not to get carried away by this notion. Probably many of us could convince ourselves that God or an angel spoke to us this morning. But we need to “discern” which experiences are from God and which are not. Are they quiet? Do they lead toward God or away? What is the long-term result? A spiritual director could help us sort through such questions.
That said, I suspect Joseph’s dream might have entailed a movement of this kind. It contained—not a kangaroo, but—a quiet certainty of the presence of God. No doubts followed it, though they would surely seem warranted. Joseph’s dream was like the face of mother to a child. Home. It was like the voice of a close friend.
Joseph did not experience his faith as broken into, shattered or pulled to pieces by the dream. Instead the message fit right into the design of Joseph’s life with God.
And so he followed.
What is your internal sense of the Christmas story? Is the birth of God an impossible tale reserved for children? Or do you find the roots of trust within yourself as Joseph did?
