Dispatches From Dean Dane

Three significant sacred celebrations occur every year within the same eight-day period, and one of the quirks of the liturgical calendar is that they always fall in Lent. Every March, we celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day on March 17, Saint Joseph’s Day on March 19, and the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary on March 25. This trio of feasts is a wonderful reminder that the Church wears but lightly the cloak of fasting–for the Bride is always united to the Bridegroom, and “who can fast when the Bridegroom is near?” But more importantly, they also remind us that our God continues to work in the chaos of our world and the chaos of our lives.

Now it’s true that only one of these feast days receives much recognition in our secular calendar…and not generally for the most sacred reasons. Saint Patrick’s Day became an important celebration for the people of the Irish diaspora even before the major waves of immigration prompted by the Great Famine of the 1840s. Records exist of annual Saint Patrick’s Day parades in many American cities in the 18th century, usually organized by local benevolent societies organized for the support of poor Irish immigrants. By the 19th century, Saint Patrick’s Day had become a major occasion for Americans of Irish descent to celebrate their heritage. Today, Saint Patrick’s Day is primarily an occasion to consume corned beef, cabbage, and green beer.

But all the shamrock-silliness belies the fact that Saint Patrick’s Day is a Christian commemoration celebrating the life and legacy of a great Christian saint. If Patrick is remembered as the patron saint of Ireland, it is because he did great things for the Gospel of Jesus Christ amongst the Irish people.

There is little we know with certainty of the details of Patrick's life, and what information we do have is deeply interwoven with legend. (Unfortunately there never were any snakes in Ireland in the first place, so there's no way Patrick could have driven them out.) But we can be sure of a few things.

Patrick’s world was, at the time of his birth, descending into utter chaos. The fourth and fifth centuries were bad times to be a Christian Roman Briton, which is precisely what Patrick was. His father was a minor imperial administrator and a deacon in the Church. His grandfather had been a priest. (Remember, the expectation of clerical celibacy was only made general in the 11th-century.) As the western Roman Empire collapsed, the legions were recalled from Britain. Communities like Patrick’s became vulnerable to raids perpetrated by pagans both from the European continent and from Ireland.

Patrick was taken in one such raid and became a slave in Ireland. By his own testimony, his faith had been nominal before his captivity. But the years he spent tending the sheep of his Irish master taught him to pray, and to rely more and more on the grace and mercy of God. By the time Patrick escaped captivity and returned to his family in Britain he was a committed Christian eager to serve the Lord wherever He called him.

And the Lord called him back to his captors. In a vision, Patrick saw an Irishman bringing him a letter from the Irish people with the plea “We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us.” So Patrick went, and by the proclamation of the Gospel and with great deeds of power he brought to faith in Christ the same folk who once had held him a slave.

Patrick did what the Lord God asked of him. He worked and prayed and proclaimed the Gospel. And through his faithfulness, the story of God's salvation continues to unfold.

Joseph of Nazareth’s world was, at the time of his birth, already deep in chaos. A Jewish τέκτων–a word traditionally rendered “carpenter,” but probably better translated as “craftsman”–he lived in the culturally and religiously mixed northern part of Israel in the region of Galilee.

We know nothing of Joseph's life before he became engaged to a young girl–a maiden, or virgin–named Mary. We do know something of Joseph's family background, as he was descended from the “house and lineage of David,” the great Jewish King of cherished but distant memory. While we can safely assume that Joseph and his family took pride in their genealogy, we can certainly say that it made no material improvement in their daily lives.

For the lands of Israel and Judah had long been subjugated to brutal, dominating power of Roman occupation. The current claimant to the title “King of the Jews” was a puppet ruler of mostly Greek descent, happily colluding with the Romans in order to secure his own continued comfort and cruel control. Whatever the past glories of Joseph's family, the world he knew and the life he lived was one of mere subsistence and humiliating oppression.

And speaking of humiliation, Joseph's personal life was no more promising than his national prospects. After the intricate details of their betrothal had been hammered out but before he and Mary came together as husband and wife, Joseph learned that she was pregnant. Now “cuckold” could be added to the lowly titles of this man whose ancestors once ruled from Jerusalem.

Joseph resolved to cut his losses, save face, and end his marriage before it really began. The only clear clue we are given of his character is the fact that he wanted to dissolve the engagement privately, so as not to make Mary a public disgrace. As his life was becoming even more chaotic, he showed grace and kindness to the woman who had ruined it.

But God intervened. Through a dream, the Angel of the Lord told Joseph that the child that Mary was carrying had been conceived by the Holy Spirit, and was the anointed Savior of the Jewish people. He was to be Joseph's son by adoption, and therefore also the greater Son of the great David himself. And it would be Joseph's job to protect this boy and His mother as the whole world of chaos and darkness rallied itself to oppose Him.

We don't hear much more of Joseph in the story of Jesus’s life and ministry. But that makes sense, as his work was done in the background, allowing everything else to unfold. We know Joseph obeyed the Lord's command, took Mary as his wife, and saved her and her Son from the wrath of Herod, the ersatz King of the Jews. We know that he and Mary raised Jesus with patience and care and apparently all the ordinary stresses of parenthood. (They accidentally forgot him on a road trip, after all.) We even know that when Jesus began his ministry there were some who scoffed at the notion that a craftsman’s son–did they give a mocking wink and put “son” in air quotes?–could have anything important to say.

We know, in short, that Joseph did what the Lord God called him to do. He worked and prayed and protected his family. And through his faithfulness the story of God's salvation continues to unfold.

And finally we come to the Feast of the Annunciation. What Saint Matthew the Evangelists gives us from Joseph's viewpoint, Saint Luke the Evangelist gives from Mary's viewpoint.

Still, there is little we know with certainty about this girl from Nazareth who was visited by the Angel Gabriel. Later pious depictions of her in art and literature exalt her as Mary, Mother of God. But the Scriptures tell us almost nothing of who she was. We know that she was young. We know that she “knew not a man,” and was therefore shocked when the Angel told her she would bear a Son. We know she was courageous and faithful and accepted the declaration of what God was doing in her life and her world: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it unto me according to thy Word.”

We know that she suffered–that as a result of God's action in this world of chaos through her son Jesus, “a sword would pierce [her] heart also.” We know that she and her family worried and wondered over Jesus as he began his ministry, thinking him to be “out of his mind.” We know she saw her son crucified–an experience of unimaginable agony for any person to witness, and unthinkable for a parent to have to endure.

We know that Mary was part of the company of Jesus’s disciples who received the news that He had risen from the dead. We know that she was present with that company on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Ghost fell upon them with power, enabling them to proclaim to every nation the news that Jesus of Nazareth had saved the Jewish people–and all peoples–through his death and resurrection. And we can trust that through the rest of her days, Jesus’s friend John obeyed the words he had heard from Christ on the Cross: “Son, behold thy mother.”

May this octave of Lenten feasts always remind us that God is present in the fullness of this life. He orders our chaos. He makes a way where there is no way. And He redeems the realities and the relationships that make us who we are.