I Believe in You

A Homily for the Feast of the Holy Family 2024

I fell in love this Christmas… but not with a person! Rather, I fell in love with a song. There is a contemporary Christmas carol entitled: “The Carol of Joseph.” This song caught my eye, or rather my ear, first, because there are so few Christmas carols that feature St. Joseph. And second, because the subtitle of this lovely piece of music is “I Believe in You.”

The concept of the carol reaches back to ancient Christian tradition and depicts Joseph as a man of doubt… a man drawn into a situation not of his own choosing or making; a man who agrees to take on a role that perhaps was not in line with what he had hoped for his own life. A man who witnesses the birth of the Son of God; a man called to father, the Father’s son.

What I find so lovely about this carol is how, in the song, Joseph wrestles with the reality of the Incarnation, due to his own humility, which causes him to doubt how he, with so little to bring, might raise a King. And in the midst of his doubts it is Mary who sings the songs refrain: “I believe in you.” Not, surprisingly enough, to her newborn infant, but rather to her husband. And it is Mary’s belief in Joseph that brings Joseph into deeper faith.

What is so marvelous to me about this contemporary song is how it depicts the ancient Christmas story, as written in the Nativity icon of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. In the icon Mary is at the center, reclining in a cave, the newly born Christ child, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lay right beside her but her focus is strangely, maybe even shockingly, not on the child… she is not rapt in adoration of the newborn King, rather her attention is totally on Joseph who we find in the lower left-hand corner of the icon speaking with a strange looking shepherd: a manifestation of the devil. And the strange shepherd is trying to coax Joseph into unbelief. But it is Mary’s beseeching on his part, it is her intercessory prayer for her spouse, that allows Joseph to reject the temptations to doubt and to choose Hope over despair.

Mary’s faith in Joseph believes Joseph into hope so Joseph in turn can believe others into hope as well. The simple words, from the contemporary song, sung by Mary to Joseph is enough and more than enough: “I believe in you.”

Here lies the foundation of any “holy family”: The willingness to believe each other into hope. A spouse who believes his or her spouse into hope. A father his daughter and a mother her son. A brother his sister and a sister her brother, a friend to a friend, a religious to a religious. What makes any family “holy” is our willingness to believe each other into hope.

How often, do you imagine, during those years in Nazareth, did Mary believe Joseph into hope and Joseph, Mary? And how did their belief in their son shape the very Son of God as a Sign of Hope for the world?

As you all know, this past Christmas Eve, Pope Francis inaugurated the Jubilee Year of Hope! So, we might ask: How can we be people with Hope to bring? The answer: Believe in one another. Parents let your children know you believe in them… no matter the circumstances. Spouses let each other know. Siblings, friends, neighbors, religious… tell each other, as Mary prayed for a doubting Joseph: I believe in you!

That simple act… those simple words: “I believe in you” can save a soul and incarnate hope into something much more than a nice theme for a Jubilee Year.

Some people find the image of Joseph as a man who doubted offensive. I personally find it encouraging and comforting. Our Holy Cross saint, Br. Andre Bessette, always said the same thing to those who came to him, the sick in mind, body or spirit, he said: Ite ad Joseph — “Go to Joseph!” Why? Because Joseph gets it. Joseph knows. Joseph made the journey himself, for doubt and fear to faith and hope.

Mary believed Joseph into hope. Let us believe each other into hope this Jubilee year… so the church, made up of a very motley crew of people, might reveal itself as a family and not just family but as a Holy Family.

So, let us not be afraid to say to one another: “I believe in you.”