Saint Joseph is kneeling by the Child in the cave of Bethlehem. Let us draw near, and kneel there with him, and follow his thoughts afar off. It is but an hour since that Babe was born into the world, and gladdened Mary's eyes with the divine consolations of His face.
Joseph draws near to adore. The earthly shadow of the Eternal Father rests softly on the Child. His temporal birth is complete in its adumbration of His unbeginning and unending Nativity. Joseph draws near, that most hidden of all God's saints, shrouded in the very clouds and shadows which surround the unbegotten Fountain of the Godhead. His soul is an abyss of nameless graces, of graces deeper than those from which ordinary virtues spring, roots which make no trial of the winter of this world, but wait to bear marvelous blossoms before the Face of God in the world to come.
Saint Joseph draws near to the new-born Jesus, that he may adore before he commands. His vast soul fills silently with love, and his life would have broken and ebbed away at the Infant's feet upon the floor of the cave, as it did years afterward on His lap; but the time was not come, and the Babe sanctified him anew, and fortified him with amazing, quiet strength and robust gentleness, and raised him into a higher sphere of holiness and of grace unspeakable, in order that he might be the official superior of his God.
Who shall dare to guess what Jesus thought with His human thoughts, as He lay there for a moment on the ground, beholding with His eyes that furniture of the cave which Mary had been beholding, and which He had chosen from all eternity? Who shall tell with what exulting reverence He yearned toward Joseph? For Mary and Joseph were both radiantly wet all over with that Precious Blood, which, yet unshed, was flowing in His veins and throbbing in His Heart. Those Three! they were three kingdoms of God, but one King; three creations, and the Creator one of these creations; three, yet as it were but one, one with an amazing unity, a unity which made them one, yet left them three, the earthly trinity.
Joseph worshiped Him as no saint before had done. From his deep, calm soul he had poured out a very ocean of love, tenderest love, humblest love, love shrinking from being like the Father's love, yet also daring to be like it, as Mary's had been like the conjoined loves of Father and of Spirit, as she was Mother and Spouse conjoined. No angel might love Jesus as Joseph loved Him, as Joseph was bound to love Him. Oh, joyous thought, oh, grateful remembrance, that Jesus was thus welcomed into the world!
- Father Frederick William Faber, "Bethlehem"
- text taken from Joseph, Son of David, compiled and edited by Sister Emily Joseph, C.S.J.