Posted on 12/27/2017 5:17:00 PM PST by ebb tide
From a reader…
QUAERITUR:
At this time of year the inevitable ‘Mary was an unwed mother‘ and The Holy Family’s flight into Egypt makes them migrants sermons are very confusing. Can you clarify these interpretations? Or recommend a source that does.I discount them as political or ‘Social Justice’interpretations that use both events to their own purposes, which I think is wrong! A recent example was USCCB using the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe as ‘a day of Solidarity with Migrants’. I see my church becoming way too political. Thank you and Merry Christmas to you!
Yes… this sort of thing is inevitable: force the narrative into an agenda.
1 – Mary was an unwed mother… not.
The Jewish marriage practice was to make the contract with the bride’s father and pay a bride-price (mohar) and the betrothal was the legal equivalent of a marriage ceremony. The bride would remain in her father’s home for up to a year, but she was considered to be married. Joseph would have paid the bride-price at their engagement, when the marriage contract was solemnized, but Mary would have remained in Joachim’s house. They were formally wedded in a ceremony after the angel instructed Joseph in the dream.
So, from the moment Mary was betrothed to Joseph she was legally considered to be the wife of Joseph. Their relationship was sacred as if they had already had the wedding ceremony. The bond could not be dissolved except, as after formal marriage, by divorce.
Calling Mary an “unwed mother” is dangerously close to blasphemy.
2 – The Holy Family were “refugees”. Sort of, but not in the way that liberals want you to believe.
The Holy Family goes first to Bethlehem because of the census. If you are going to your ancestral town mandated census, you are not a refugee.
“But Father! But Father!, libs are squealing, “They were denied a room in the inn. Those innkeepers were mean refugee hating meanies! They were undocumented migrants and the haters refused to let them in. That’s what YOU would do! That’s because you HATE VATICAN II!”
If you register in the census, you are not “undocumented”.
They weren’t migrants, because they were only there to register and then return home to Nazareth.
They didn’t get to stay at the inn or the khan, because – try to follow this – there was no room at the inn. Which means there was no room at the inn. They weren’t give room because there wasn’t any. If there had been a room, they would have been given a room. It was customary to take travelers into homes, as when people journeyed to Jerusalem to offer sacrifice. As Alfred Edersheim explains the denial of a room had nothing to do with their poverty. The rabbinic teaching was that travelers were to be received as the shekinah should be received. So, they weren’t rejected because they were poor, or “different” or foreigners, blah blah blah. The inn or khan was FULL.
The Holy Family went to Egypt. Why? Just before the Patron Saint of Planned Parenthood, Herod, ordered the slaughter of all the babies, an angel told Joseph in a dream to take his family to Egypt. If an angel tells you to do something, you do it. So, the flight into Egypt was not just due to the awful circumstances caused by Herod, it is also divinely directed because of what Herod was going to do.
Also, they had to to Egypt so that the prophecy would be fulfilled:
That it might be fulfilled which the Lord spoke by the prophet, saying: Out of Egypt have I called my son. (Matthew 2:15)
So, no, they Holy Family, seeking refuge in Egypt at the specific direction of God, is not the archetype of all refugees today.
If they sought refuge in Egypt, they were, in a sense, “refugees”. However, they were a) three people, not thousands and they were b) fleeing the concrete danger of murder of their Child. They sought sanctuary.
Moreover, the Holy Family were no threat to the national security of Egypt.
Finally, when the danger was over, they went home.
It is interesting to note that the Joseph of Genesis was driven into Egypt – sold as a slave and not a refugee – which led to the enslavement of the People. Joseph of the New Testament was driven into Egypt, which led to the salvation of the People. Herod and Pharaoh both ordered the slaughter of infants. Moses and Jesus both escaped slaughter in Egypt and both led an exodus from bondage.
Just because biblical figures traveled somewhere – usually because God told them to go there – that doesn’t make them refugees. Adam and Eve were not refugees from Paradise, they were being punished. Cain was not a refugee after he killed Abel, God punished him with wandering. Abraham was called by God to go places. Etc.
Out of all the refugees and the tens of millions of illegals who've flooded in to the U.S., how many had dreams from angels telling them to come here? NONE. There's no comparison between the Holy Family and "refugees" or illegal aliens. When liberals try to give us that baloney, we need to shut them down.
Also, even though they were poor, since Mary sacrificed 2 doves instead of a lamb at Jesus’ birth, the Maji did bring them gifts, including gold, when Jesus was approximately 2 years old. They were refugees in Egypt? Sure. But at least they paid their own way. Reminds me of the story of Peter finding the coin in the fishes mouth at Jesus’ direction. God owes no one anything. Our “refugees “ are freeloaders.
And, if today’s “rapists and refugees” (oh, wait Joseph and Mary were FOLLOWING THE LAW to travel to Bethlehem to pay taxes and register for the Roman census) were the inspiration for this pope, today’s government would tax the rapists, imprison the criminals, and demand that all need return to their own country!
These ANTIFA religion haters are truly a riot!
Free daily entertainment.
Ha ha!
And freakin' Ha ha!
It's not just baloney, it's s*** sammiches...
God certainly owes everyone to carry out His good pleasure, as elucidated in His own word, with them. Otherwise He is a liar.
Somewhere between the screamingly unhinged liberals and the smug self-content conservatives must lie the truth. Neither one smells like the perfume of heaven.
I disagree that they were “Poor’.. Joseph was a carpenter.. in a age where everything from the table you sat at to the utensils you used, the carpenter in a village was a very crucial and well off individual. and provided for his family well.
Flame away
Which is an order given by God in this verse--Leviticus 12:8--'But if she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves or two young pigeons, the one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering; and the priest shall make atonement for her, and she will be clean.'"
Since Mary and Joseph went the "2-dove route," I assume from the above verse in Leviticus, that they couldn't afford a lamb.
No argument there.. I submit that since they had just had the financial hit on travel to Bethlehem, the payment of taxes, they just were being frugal knowing that the trip home was coming up.
I’m not saying they were “Rich”, just not “Poor”.
I believe that the “Poor” narrative was added later to garner the following of the ‘common” man
I’ll just say one more thing, that I believe they were poor, and that Lord Jesus was born in an animal stable for a reason. Satan is proud, and Satan expected Lord Jesus to be born in an extraordinary manner. Satan never looked for Him in Nazareth, the Compton of Israel. Being a poor nobody was a very good disguise that allowed Him to grow up safe.
A small but important detail to the story of Joseph and Mary is found in Matthew 1:25... "But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus."
I imagine they could live off the gifts from the Magi for quite some time.
Joseph was a tekton (Gr.)
I’ve seen various explanations for what that means, but the bottom line seems to be a man who didn’t have any land of his own -— at a time and place when land-owning was the basis of all wealth-— and lived by his labor in a town so small and poor, it wasn’t even reachable by a Roman road until the following century.
So it’s not like he was a bigtime artisan doing fine craftsmanship for wealthy Roman patrons.
It’s more like he was a guy with small-time woodworking shop, making doors, donkey-carts, and yokes for oxen.
This would explain why they gave the poor peoples’ offering at the temple -— a pair of turtledoves-— instead of a middle-class lamb.
I can go along with that...
As an aside this is why I love FR ,I learn everyday..
thank you for sharing your knowledge
You are welcome.
Interesting. Thanks for that; I never knew that.
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