The Catholic Weekly 19 July 2020

8 19, July, 2020 F rom the archbishop catholicweekly.com.au A love that can win It’s a difficult time formarriage – all themore reason to trust in God, the Blessed Virgin and St Joseph I t was the most conse- quential wedding in his- tory and it nearly didn’t happen. Mary’s marriage was threatened by misun- derstanding and gossip, but righted by an angelic visita- tion and Joseph’s acceptance of her innocence (Mt 1:18- 25). In the Joseph window here in St Mary’s Cathedral, The JosephWindow in St Mary’s Cathedral shows the marriage of St Joseph and the Blessed Virgin Mary, at left, The right part of the window shows St Joseph working as a carpenter assisted by Jesus. A reliquary of Saints Louis and Zélie Martin, parents of St Thérèse of Lisieux, stands before an image of the canonised couple. PHOTO:ALPHONSUS FOK Mary is dressed in the white and gold of a virgin queen, her long golden hair crowned with a floral tiara and rosary roses at her feet. St Anna looks on, dressed like a nun, while the mitred high priest holds his hand up in blessing. Mary holds her right hand out, ready to re- ceive her wedding ring, while her other hand coyly covers her belly. In the background behind her is the Tower of Da- vid, a reference in the Litany of Loreto to her beauty and strength (cf. Song 4:4) In the same window Jo- seph is dressed in royal red and gold, as it is through him that Jesus is joined to the line of David (Mt 1:6). He is bare-footed before his bride who is Ark of the Covenant. He and his groomsmen hold rods but his alone is blooming. This is a reference to the story of Aaron the priest’s staff flow- ering to indicate his would be the priestly line (Num ch. 17): so, from Joseph’s household will come a king who is also a priest. What’s more, in the apocryphal andmedieval leg- end, it was by the flowering of his staff that Joseph was iden- tified, out of all the widowers of Israel, as the one worthy to be Mary’s husband ( Pseudo- evangelion of James and The Golden Legend ). That it flow- ered as a lily told of the chasti- ty that wouldmark his unique marriage. In our window he holds out the wedding ring which he is about to place on Mary’s finger. Framing the window is the chant used for the Feast of St Joseph: “The just shall sprout like the lily and flourish forev- er before the Lord” ( Justus ger- minabit sicut lilium et florebit in aeternum ante Dominum ). So our beautiful window here at St Mary’s tells the story of a wedding to which a cou- ple brought their history and hopes, their extended fami- lies and particular personali- ties. Before God’s priest they promised to give themselves completely to each other and to God’s plan for them, and through each other to that Boy who would be the king of kings and greatest of priests. He in turn would institute a royal priesthood of all the baptised that would include future spouses and children like Louis, Zélie andThérèse, and all those faithful jubilari- ans whomwe celebrate today. Today’s readings reflect our ambivalent experience of the natural order. Our readings celebrate the rain that waters the earth, the earth that em- beds the plants, the plants that provide seed for the sow- er and bread for the eating (Is 55:10-11; Mt 13:1-23). But Jesus does not romanticise ecology. He recognises that Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP