Friday of the Seventeenth week in Ordinary Time
Commentary of the day
Saint Augustine (354-430), Bishop of Hippo (North Africa) and Doctor of the Church
Sermon 51, §19.30
"Is he not the carpenter's son? "
The Lord Jesus’ response: “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house ? » (Lk 2,49) does not state that God is his Father in order to affirm that Joseph is not. How are we to prove this? With Scripture, which continues… “He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them” (v.51). To whom was he obedient? Wasn’t it to his parents? So both of them were his parents… They were his parents in time and God was his Father from all eternity. They were the parents of the Son of man; the Father, of the Word and his Wisdom (1Cor 1,24), the power by which he created all things…
And so don’t be surprised that the evangelists give us the genealogy of Jesus through Joseph rather than Mary (Mt 1,1 ; Lk 3,23). If Mary became mother apart from the desire of the flesh, Joseph became father apart from any carnal union. Therefore he is able to be the point of departure for the Savior’s genealogy even though he is not his father according to the flesh. His great purity only confirms his paternity. His wife, Mary, wished to put his name in first place: “See, you father and I have been searching for you with great anxiety” (Lk 2,48)…
If Mary bore the Savior apart from the laws of nature, the Holy Spirit was also at work in Joseph and therefore working equally in both of them. “Joseph was a just man,” says Matthew the evangelist (1,19). The husband was just, his wife was just: the Holy Spirit rested upon both these just people and gave a son to both of them.