The whole Catholic Church, in fact, all of Christendom and even beyond, is founded on mystery.  If we stop to really look at it, we will see that practically everything that we believe and that we practice belongs to the realm of mystery.  Now, mystery is something that we cannot comprehend with our normal reasoning.  It is something beyond that because its source is God himself, who is divine and we are human.  It is only when the divine penetrates the human that we begin to have some supernatural understanding of these mysteries.  To enter into the mystery of God opens up a whole realm of beauty, security, love, faith, hope… everything that is good for our souls.

Today we celebrate the mystery of the virginal espousals of Joseph and Mary.  We are told that it was a true marriage; Joseph is the real husband of Mary and she is his wife.  Yet their relationship is a mystery.  In this mystery flowing out from the great mystery of God and his loving relationship with us, we see a special protection that he bestowed on them, especially on our Blessed Mother.  She was predestined and created for the purpose of giving the world its Redeemer, its Savior, Son of God incarnate.  This could not be done in a normal way because Jesus, her son, is God, yet God had, we might say, a concern for our Blessed Mother’s reputation.  If among her associates she had gone around bearing a child without being married, she would have been an object of scorn and even worse.  So he protected her by this virginal union with St. Joseph.  This is a mystery.  It was revealed to both of them that they were to be always virginal.  That is the unusual union of man and woman–it is a mystery.

What union is there in the whole great mystery of God and his love for man that is more fruitful than that of Mary and Joseph?  It is on an entirely supernatural plane. They gave the world its Savior.

What can be more fruitful than the virginal union of those whom God calls to be spouses of his son, Jesus?  We, too, can give saviors to the world and be saviors ourselves.  We are exhorted in our liturgy of this Feast of the Espousals of Mary and Joseph, to celebrate and rejoice that we have been drawn into the very heart of this mystery.