When the Magi had left,
behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph, saying:
“Arise
and take the child and his mother
and flee
to Egypt and stay there until I tell you,
for Herod
is about to seek the child out in order to kill him.”
When he
had arisen, he took the child and his mother by night
and they
went away into Egypt and were there until the death of Herod,
in order
that what the Lord said through the prophet might be fulfilled:
“Out of Egypt I have called my son.”
~~
God
calls Joseph to become a refugee, to undertake a perilous journey to a strange
land and experience the alienation and marginalization of life on the edge of
society in Egypt. God calls him to rise from
death to life, but not to an easy life, and He doesn’t give him an easy road to
tread to get there. God doesn’t promise
us an easy life either; He promises eternal life.
Moreau
wrote of the great reluctance and fear he felt in becoming superior of the
Brothers of St. Joseph, but he tells us that eventually he “felt in duty bound
to bow before the clearly manifested plan of Divine Providence.” We only bow before what we love. We can only
love God because God first loved us.
“I
fell in love with Israel when he was still a child; and out of Eygpt I called
my son.” That’s the full verse from
Hosea that Matthew quotes part of in this reading, and the whole thing is
important, is vital, because if our understanding of call and mission aren’t
grounded in God’s love, discipleship seems harsh and restrictive, instead of
lovingly self-giving.
God
has a plan for each of us, a loving plan. God has a dream for each of us. To dream together is for lovers.
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