Every year, on the twenty-fifth of March, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord to his Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary. March 25 used to fall on the spring equinox (now the equinox is earlier, on the 20), when the sun “enters” the first of the constellations, Ares. For this reason, in Europe, and even in the American colonies, from the early Middle Ages all the way into the 1750s, the feast was the first day even of the civil year.
The Church’s ancient martyrology, or list of saints, marked March 25 as the day of creation, the day of the Incarnation, and the day of the Crucifixion. It is a day liturgically and cosmologically rich with the rhythms of nature and of grace. (A remnant of this is found even in the new, current postconciliar Roman Martyrology, where we still find St Dismas, the good thief, on March 25, following the tradition that this was the date of Good Friday).
Who needs third-rate astrology when we have the liturgy of the Church? Today the heavens and the earth begin anew the cycle of their movements, today the Son of God took flesh of the Virgin Mary: a day of great portents, indeed! Today natural things that are mere beautiful symbols are seen in the light of the deepest, revealed divine truths which are infallibly believed and taught.
Speaking of the certainty of revealed truths, there is another annunciation, in many ways as historically important as, or better, an integral part of the Annunciation to Our Lady. This is the Annunciation to St. Joseph, which took place some months after the first annunciation.
We read of this in St. Matthew’s Gospel:
When Mary the Mother of Jesus was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Ghost. Whereupon Joseph her husband, being a just man and not willing publicly to expose her, was minded to put her away privately. But while he thought on these things, behold the angel of the Lord appeared to him in his sleep, saying, “Joseph, son of David, fear not to take thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus; for he shall save his people from their sins.
Now, there are many private revelations that in various ways try to fill in the details of these events. We have the various ancient infancy gospels, like the Protoevangelium of James, and we have St. Bridget of Sweden; Venerable Mary of Agreda; and, becoming popular today, the abbess Maria Cecilia Baij. All have something to contribute by way of some spiritual insight.
And yet for rock-solid dogmatic truth, it is best to go first to the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. Such a one is St. John Chrysostom. His manner of interpreting Sacred Scripture was, we might say, austere or minimalistic from the point of view of imagining the details or possibilities of the truths found in the Gospels. So when he gives us an interpretation, we cannot be accused of saying too much. He practically never adds to the text of Scripture, but in this case, he does, so it is a significant indication of the importance of his insight into the divine word.
So let us see what he says about the annunciation to St. Joseph, the “sleeping St. Joseph” to whom devotion has grown in the last few years:
That Joseph might be fully reassured, the angel spoke of the future as well as of the past: “She shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus.” “Thou” singular, not “you” plural, as though God would say, “you must not think that, because this child is conceived of the Holy Spirit, he has nothing to do with you singly: you have to look after him and care for him in every way. Although you have no part in his begetting and Mary is forever a virgin, nevertheless you stand in a father’s place toward this child in all that does not touch the dignity of virginity. It is for you to name him. You shall be the first to call him by his name; and though he is not your bodily son you will not fail always to show him a father’s love and care. Therefore, I would have you name him yourself, that he and you may be more closely united.”
Naming is an act of great power in Scripture, from Adam’s naming of Eve in Genesis to God’s enlarging of Abraham’s name and Christ’s naming of Peter, all the way to Revelation with its mysterious “new name” we each are to receive after the resurrection from the dead on the last day.
Now, Joseph gave the Name by his God-given paternal authority to the One who is absolute head of all creation, visible and invisible. This is in a certain sense more solemn and efficacious than if he had naturally conceived him. For this is the Name “above every other name,” the Name at which “every knee must bend, in heaven, on earth, and under the earth,” the Name through which we offer all our prayers, and the only Name in which there is salvation.
St. Joseph is thus powerful like the name he bestows. He is the strongest, the most enlightened, the most loving, the most holy of fathers. It is in the Name he bestowed that we have everything that lasts and that will make us happy now and forever. Let us celebrate his annunciation along with Mary’s as we invoke him in the words of the liturgy in the East, allowing ourselves to join Joseph in just one pre-Easter “Alleluia,” as in the Byzantine rite they sing this word all through Lent!
Him who was foretold by the law and the prophets didst thou circumcise as a male child on the eighth day; and thou gavest him the name Jesus, which was preserved in the counsel of the Trinity, like a precious pearl brought forth from the treasuries of heaven for revelation to all peoples, O Joseph; whereby having astonished the angels, gladdened men, terrified the demons and rendered the whole world fragrant as with sweet-smelling myrrh, thou didst cry out to God: Alleluia!