I have always thought that Mary and Joseph loved each other truly and fully, and originally wanted to give themselves completely to each other in the sacred bond of marriage

Dear Father Angelo, 

I begin by greeting you affectionately in Christ and thank you for the service she provides with the site.(…).

I continue by apologizing for this decidedly mile-long message (that’s why I cut almost four-fifths of it; ed.) 

In recent days I happened to read one of your answers to a question that left me very perplexed. You were responding to a person who asked whether it was permissible for two future spouses to renounce marital intimacy by mutual consent. You said that that was permissible by reference to the so-called “Josephino marriage” and you were giving the example of Mary and Joseph. According to this view, you argued that Mary and Joseph would presumably decide to avoid all marital intimacy even before Mary received the Angel’s announcement. 

I wonder if this is actually the doctrine of the Church, or just one of the possible theories. I have always thought (and this is just my humble personal vision) that Mary and Joseph truly and fully loved each other, and originally wanted to give themselves completely to each other in the sacred bond of marriage.

It is only following the announcement of the Angel and the birth of Jesus that the Holy Spouses understand that the Virginity of Mary is sacred, and Her whole body is sacred because of the “Golden House” of Our Lord. Thus, it is after the Jesus Event that the two spouses mutually decide to live in continence; this is obviously a unique case in human history that (still, in my very personal opinion) can hardly be taken as an indication of the marital morality of any two spouses. Besides, isn’t it true that the marriage can be annulled if it hasn’t been consummated?

Anyway, back to the question:

First of all, you write that by saying “I don’t know a man” Mary “declares that she had entered into a virgin marriage with Joseph” – but it seems to me that we cannot say this; we can only say that Mary and Joseph had not yet met intimately before the conclusion of the long marriage process. Is there explicit and undoubted evidence of what Mary and Joseph’s original intention was in their marriage? (…).

I will be happy if you will tell me what you think of these reflections and if there are any doctrinal errors.

A warm greeting and a prayer for you!

Cordially

Answer from the priest

Dear friend,

1. There is an underlying vice in your reflection, and that is that of one who reads the Holy Scriptures alone.

Some (alias, Protestants) do so by appealing to free examination. 

This is not your case, for goodness sake! In the long reflection you have presented to me, one gets the impression of a person who is attentive to the Scriptures, loves them and wishes to penetrate them. 

But the Scriptures do not exhaust Divine Revelation. There is also the Sacred Tradition to which they are inextricably linked. 

Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition constitute the sole repository of Divine Revelation. Therefore the Scriptures are to be received and believed as the Church has received and believed them from the beginning. 

This is the criterion that allows us to say that our faith is the same faith as the Apostolic Church, which enjoyed Divine Revelation.

2.  The Second Vatican Council in the dogmatic constitution Dei Verbum provides some essential criteria for understanding sacred Scripture.For it says that it should be read and interpreted “in the light of the very Spirit by whom it was written” (DV 12).So “to derive the exact meaning of the sacred texts, one must pay no less diligence to the content and unity of all Scripture, taking due account of the living tradition of the whole Church and the analogy of faith” (DV 25).

3. Coming to the topic of your email that seems to reject the virginal purpose of the Madonna and Saint Joseph prior to the angel’s announcement, we must start from the way he greeted her. He did not call her by name, but said: “full of grace”.This greeting, in light of the unity of the Scriptures, should be read together with Gn 3:15: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, your lineage and her lineage…”.This allows us to say that this is not just any fullness of grace, as we will see.

4. And if one wants to read it according to the living Tradition of the Church one must refer to the Holy Fathers who are those who received Divine Revelation from the apostles.In your long reflection you have presented your thoughts which, however, have not taken into account the Holy Fathers and the magisterium of the Church, which has the task of piously, holy and faithfully transmitting the Divine Revelation (cf. DV,10).

5. The Council further says that “Holy Scripture is to be read and interpreted in the light of the very Spirit with whom it was written” (cf. Of the Verbum, 12). Now, that Spirit is also found in the teaching of the holy doctors and in the lives of the saints, so St. Thomas Aquinas was able to say that “the meaning of Sacred Scripture is understood through the actions of the saints, since the same Spirit with whom the sacred books were written, (cf. 2 Pt 1:21: “Inspired by the Holy Spirit the saints spoke for God”), guide holy men to act; (cf. Rom 8:14: “Those who are guided by the Spirit of God are children of God”)” (Commentary on Rom 1:9). And he adds: “As Augustine explains, the statements and precepts of Holy Scripture are to be interpreted and understood according to the behavior of the saints; for the Holy Spirit who inspired the Prophets and other authors of Holy Scripture, and the Spirit who moved the saints to act, is identical. For it is true what Peter says that moved by the Holy Spirit those men spoke from God (2 Pet 1:21); just as it is true what Paul says: All who are guided by the Spirit of God are children of God (Rom 8:14). Therefore Holy Scripture must be understood in the way in which Christ and the other saints acted” (Commentary on Jn 18:23).

6. The analogy of faith must also be taken into due account. In reference to the fullness of grace of Our Lady, here is what St. Thomas says: “Those whom God chooses for a special task, prepares them and arranges them so that they are fit for their duties, according to St. Paul’s statement: “He has enabled us to be ministers of a new covenant” (2 Cor 3:6). But the Blessed Virgin was chosen to be the mother of God. It cannot therefore be doubted that God by his grace made her fit for this, according to the words of the angel: “You have found grace with God: behold, you will conceive, etc.” (Luke 1:30ff)” (Theological Sum, I, 27:4). And reiterating the same principle that “God gives to each the grace that is his due according to the task for which he chooses him” he says that “like Christ, as a man, he was predestined and chosen to be “Son of God in the power of sanctification” (Rom 1:4) and had as a personal privilege such fullness of grace that it then made it redound on all, because “from his fullness we have all received” (Jn 1:16)” so “the Blessed Virgin Mary obtained such fullness of grace that she was very close to the author of grace, because she had to welcome into herself the one who is full of all grace; and, giving birth to him, she had to somehow give grace to all” (Theological Sum, I, 27, 5, ad 1). And since God gave the Madonna a higher office than that of all the angels and saints put together, precisely keeping in mind the analogy of faith, one can understand why Pius XII said in the encyclical Mystici corporis that “the most holy soul of Mary was filled with the divine Spirit of Jesus Christ more than all other souls together”.

7. Always in light of the analogy of faith, if St. Paul exhorts to virginity to be united with God without distraction (cf. 1 Cor 7:35) and be holy in body and spirit (cf. 1 Cor 7:34), and if this has been the spirit that animated so many virgin people of both sexes in the history of the church, is it wrong to think that she who loved God with a love superior to that of all virgins and all martyrs together, could not express the same desire?

8. It should also be remembered that in the Old Testament renouncing marriage was considered a very serious sin because it was considered a failure to fulfill God’s precept to grow and multiply, as emerges from the Talmud (Jebamot 63b 3 64a), and precisely for this reason virginity was not contemplated at all.

Maria was the first to choose this path.

And since he had to get married since an ancient Palestinian proverb said “either the wedding or the grave!” What could he do to break out of such an impasse?

Is it wrong to think that Our Lady asked God to introduce her to a young man animated by the same ideals?

And that God this young man was preparing him for her in St. Joseph because by calling him to such a high task he had given him a proportionate grace?

9. A Marian theology, the so-called Mariology, and a Josephine theology developed around the sublime figures of Our Lady of St. Joseph.

I recommend you approach these studies. You will be able to understand with the eyes of giants the inenarrable greatness of the Madonna, that greatness for which the axiom was coined “De Maria numquam satis”. Only God knows the sublime greatness of Mary’s holiness.

And you will also be able to understand the greatness of St. Joseph’s holiness, including his virginal purpose. It is not for nothing that the Church gives him the cult of protodulia, the first of all saints.

10. If you do this you will realize how true the words of St. Francis de Sales, Doctor of the Church, are: “Between Sacred Scripture and the doctrine of the Fathers there is the difference between a whole almond and a crushed almond of which everyone can eat the kernel, or between a whole bread and a broken and distributed bread. We must therefore use the Fathers because they were the instrument with which God made known to us the true meaning of his Word” (Letter no. 235).

St. Paul, who during the apparition had been taught directly by Jesus Christ, did not want to do it alone but went to Jerusalem to confront those who were considered the pillars of the Church. For he writes: “I expounded to them the Gospel which I proclaim among the Gentiles, but I expounded it privately to the most authoritative people, lest I run or have run in vain” (Gal 2:2).

Even in reading and understanding the Scriptures for oneself there is a danger of running in vain.

I thank you for giving me the opportunity to present the categories within which Sacred Scripture should be read.

If you do this, you will be very happy.

I wish you well, I bless you and I remember you willingly in prayer.

Father Angelo

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