https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=46SIiRmoO0I
We have St. Joseph who is being tempted by a shepherd slash devil. Like when I said Joseph being tempted by a devil, I saw a few people sneering in the audience. Is that possible? Does everybody know that story? Okay, so in the tradition, there is a story which talks about, it comes from the Protoevangelium of James, which is the book out of which most of our traditions for the Mother of God and for the Nativity come from, outside of the Bible. And in that book, you have this scene where Joseph is not permitted to be there when the Mother of God gives birth. Imagine, we’re so used to our modern way of thinking with the dad, you know, in the hospital with the doctor, but that is not the traditional way that a woman would have given birth. A woman would give birth with midwives. And so Joseph was told to leave the place where Christ is born. And so then he’s mulling over in his mind and he’s thinking, like, is this really possible? Is this for real? He knows he’s not the father. And so he’s wondering, like, is this the real deal? Is this really the birth from a virgin? And it’s this devil figure who is tempting and who’s saying, like, who’s asking him questions and getting him to wonder whether or not this is actually possible. And then the midwives are the ones who are here watching the Christ child. When we talk of the Mother of God, we use certain terms which are very, very strong to help us understand this mystery. Her womb contained that, Him who the world could not contain or that the cosmos could not contain. And so she contained in her womb that which could not be contained. And it is, and it is appointing, right? It is appointing to the mystery right there even from the beginning of scripture. It is linking us to that beginning of scripture of this primordial earth. And then you see the word come down and the word of God which manifests the world out of this primordial waters. This image is helping us see what the mystery is about. And you see that ray of light coming down, that star that comes down. It’s not arbitrary that they showed it, like this ray of light which comes down and points to this hidden kernel, this hidden reason why the world exists, this hidden reason why things exist. In a certain ways we’ve been ruined by the modern world. We’ve been told that as Christians we believe these things and these things are arbitrary. That here it is, you know, there are these things that I believe and they’re somewhat arbitrary and here it is that I believe them. But that is not the case. What we believe, our faith is real. It is the things that it talks about, the things that it manifests to us. It manifests to us really the mysteries of how the world exists. Because the question that St. Joseph is asking himself, that’s the question that the atheist asks himself too about the entire cosmos. How is it possible? Why is there something rather than nothing? You can hear the physicians, the physicists ask that today. It’s like they say the Big Bang. And when we see St. Joseph there doubting and asking himself, is this possible? Is this possible that someone can be born of a virgin? What is he asking? He’s asking a huge question. He’s asking the question. He’s asking how is it possible for something to come out of nothing? How is it possible for this union between the spiritual and the physical to happen? How is it possible that the world exists? Ultimately that is what he’s asking.