s of these brothers and sisters of the
Lord imply that they were considerably older than the Child of Mary, and
that they felt that they had the sort of authority over Him which
commonly belongs to the elder children of a family; the sort of doubt
and criticism of His course which would be the instinctive attitudes of
elders toward the unprecedented course of a younger. We have, I think, a
right to infer from the terms of the narrative, that S. Joseph would
have been well acquainted with S. Mary and was not taking a wife who was
a stranger to him. Indeed, considering the actual development of the
situation, I myself feel quite certain that those are right who maintain
that the proposed marriage was intended to be merely a nominal union,
the ultimate design of which was the protection of the virginity of
Mary. I find it impossible to think of that virginity as other than of
deliberate purpose from the beginning, and prompted by the Spirit of God
for the purposes of God for which it served. There is, to be sure, no
revelation of this in Holy Scripture, but there are facts which suggest
themselves to the devout meditations of saints which we feel that we may
safely take on the authority of their spiritual intuitions. Such a fact
is this of Mary's purposed virginity which I am content to accept on the
basis of its congruity with S. Mary's life and vocation. Of the fact of
her perpetual virginity there can be no dispute among Catholic
Christians.

To S. Joseph thus preparing himself to be the guardian of the blessed
Virgin it could only come as a tremendous shock that she should be found
with a child. Our character comes out at such times of trial as when
something that we had taken quite for granted fails us, and we are left
breathless and bewildered in in the face of what would have seemed
impossible even had we thought of it. What was S. Joseph's attitude? The
beauty and sanity of his character at once shows itself. Grieved and
disheartened as he must have been, disappointed as he could not but be,
he yet thinks at once of his bethrothed, not of himself. How far could
he save her?--that was his first thought. He would at least avoid
publicity. "Being a just man, and not willing to make her a public
example, he was minded to put her away privily." It is the quality that
we express by the word benevolence--the quality of mature and deliberate
wisdom. We feel that such a man could be trusted under any
circumstances of life.