Friday of the Third Week of Advent
“O Dux, O Leader of the House of Israel, giver of the Law to Moses on Sinai: come to rescue us with your mighty power! Alleluia!”
Today we call upon the Lord as the One who led His People out of Egypt with mighty hand and outstretched arm, asking that we too “may be set free by the newness of the long-awaited Nativity”. Indeed, the Lord renews His work of freeing His People. In our first reading, Jeremiah’s prophecy declares that the people will even reflect the newness of the Lord’s work, who not only has brought the Israelites out of the Egypt, but also has “brought the descendants of the House of Israel up from the land of the north.” (Jer 23:7-8) This is the Lord who promises a king to the People, a king who will be so just that his very name will be “The Lord our justice.” (Jer 23:6)
Where do we see this Lord who frees and whose justice is coming more and more to light in His People?
St. Joseph we see in the Gospel is just (he does not want to expose pregnant Mary to shame, Mt 1:19), but unknowing (he does not realize who the child she bears is, Mt 1:18). He does not understand the newness of the Lord’s work. The Leader of the House of Israel had promised that the truly just One, God with us, would be born of a virgin mother. Such is the might of the Lord that He not only fulfills the promise that He has made, but He gives Joseph the faith necessary to acknowledge and cooperate with this new divine work. May the Lord as He rescued the Israelites from Egypt and Exile, and as He opened the eyes and heart of St. Joseph, may He show us His power manifest in this small Infant to free us too from the yoke of sin.