„Among people, the one who helped Baby Jesus the most was Righteous Joseph,” said Patriarch Daniel on Sunday.
„Joseph was not the father of the Baby, who is born eternally from the Father without a mother, as God, and was born on earth from a mother without a father, as Man. But Joseph is the adoptive father, the protector of the Mother of God and Baby Jesus,” His Beatitude explained.
„Why was he needed? Not only to help Baby Jesus but because a child, to grow fully, healthy in mind and life, needs both the affection of the mother and the affection, or love, of the father.”
A Child Needs Both Mother and Father
„Today we commemorate with much piety and honor Righteous Joseph because a child needs the love of parents, but also food, clothing, and help until he grows up and can manage on his own,” the Patriarch of Romania noted.
„Righteous Joseph, as the adoptive father of Baby Jesus and protector of the Mother of God, was a devout and humble man. Therefore, the Church remembers him today, together with Prophet David, because both Joseph and Mary were from the lineage of David, the king of the Jews.”
Salvation is Worked Out in the Family
„The Gospel of this Sunday urges us to learn to protect the family and to pray to God to help parents and children, to increase the love between husband and wife, the love of parents for their children and of children for their parents, so that all may feel that the Nativity of Lord Jesus Christ is a blessing for all mankind and that in the faithful family, the salvation of man is prepared,” His Beatitude emphasized.
The Patriarch of Romania recalled that Saint Augustine called the family „the Church at home” and reminded that the Gospel reading at the Liturgy on the Sunday after the Nativity of the Lord „shows us the care that God has for Baby Jesus, but also for all parents and children to whom He has given His blessing.”
The Flight to Egypt: Exile Turned into Blessing
An important part of the sermon was dedicated to the Flight into Egypt of Righteous Joseph with the Mother of God and the Holy Infant: „By His presence in Egypt, Baby Jesus blessed Egypt,” said the Patriarch of Romania.
„Therefore, later, Christianity flourished in Egypt, brought by Saint Apostle Mark, and the first communities of monks emerged, led by Saint Anthony the Great, so that in the 4th century, for example, and the following ones, Egypt flourished, and the number of monks increased greatly.”
Thus, Jesus, through His exile, „turned an evil into a blessing,” His Beatitude added.
„The kings of Egypt considered themselves as gods or god-like, yet they realized they were mortal,” His Beatitude Father Daniel also said. The pyramids testify that they „were always preoccupied with living eternally, but they did not succeed.”
„However, when Egypt received faith in Jesus Christ, the crucified and resurrected, many thousands of monks from Egypt discovered immortality through faith in the Resurrection and the Holy Eucharist, which is given for the forgiveness of sins and for eternal life – the Holy Eucharist, which has been called the antidote, or the remedy for immortality,” emphasized Patriarch Daniel.
Heart Purification Recommended by the Desert Fathers of Egypt
„Both through heart prayer – not at the top of the pyramid but in the depth of the heart – and through strong faith in Christ crucified and resurrected and communion with Him, the monks have already received in this life the pledge of eternal life, according to the promise of the Savior Jesus Christ: Whoever eats My Body and drinks My Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day (John 6:53), or: Whoever believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live (John 11:25),” continued the Patriarch of Romania.
The Fathers of the Egyptian Desert, visited in the 5th century by our ancestors, Saint John Cassian and Saint Germanus of Dobruja, „showed that this should be the most important work of the Christian, whether a monk or a layperson: the purification of the heart,” His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel noted.
Patriarch Daniel attended the Divine Liturgy officiated Sunday at Saint Mary Monastery in Urlați, Prahova County.
