He taught his young son how to follow the grain of a piece of olive wood, how to plane it, how to square it and join it firmly to another piece of wood to build a table or chair or, later, a house; he also taught him patience, kindness and justice, and the value of earning a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work in order to put bread on the table.

Joseph, to paraphrase Gerard Manley Hopkins, “lives in 10,000 places”: the man who rises at 2 A.M. to plough deserted snow-clogged roads; the nurse who works the night shift and then a day shift; the cop who walks the lonely beat; the mother with the autistic daughter or paralyzed son; the office worker biting his lip at some slight or racial insensitivity subtly directed at him because he, too, has to put bread on his family’s table.

Joseph lives in the teacher who gives hours of her time to help the struggling student. Joseph lives in the clerk, the cop, the secretary, the contractor who approaches the people they encounter with kindness and respect because they, too, share the God-like work of putting bread on their family’s table. The invisible, almost anonymous Joseph: chosen by God to provide for his Son, to watch over him, to teach him, to shape him, to protect and love him and the boy’s mother.

In today’s Gospel – Matthew’s version of Jesus’ birth – the whole grand event depends on Joseph, whose life has been turned upside by the angel’s news. Joseph accepts the son as his own, not as a matter of biology, but as a matter of love and compassion, of trust and faith. God’s birth in our midst depends on human partners – a Mary, a Joseph, you, me – willing to claim the unwanted, love the helpless and neediest, put aside our fears and dare to hope that God is with us. In this season and in every season, may we imitate the compassion and faith of Joseph: to seek understanding and acceptance within our families even at the cost of our own expectations and hopes, to be sources of affirmation and support for our spouses and children.

In Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth, Joseph is challenged by God to accept the child under the most difficult of circumstances and, responding out of his sense of compassion and faith, says yes. In this the last Sunday of Advent God challenges our hearts “to prepare him room,” to make a place for the Child of Bethlehem to transform our hearts and homes in his peace and justice.