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St. Joseph, Original E5 Man?

In the Letter to the Ephesians, Chapter 5 — the inspiration for the new group E5 men — St. Paul writes: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”

It's a perfect message for St. Joseph's Day, March 19, because, as Matthew 1:19 says about Mary's pregnancy, “Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly.”

Huh?

How is a man's quiet divorce of his pregnant betrothed a sign of his willingness to sacrifice himself for her?

Mother Teresa — no biblical exegete, but a spiritual master — explains. In Joseph's day, a woman found pregnant before full marriage would be penalized by the law — stoning was once the sentence, but even if that had fallen out of favor, she would be ostracized by the community to some degree for her sin.

But Joseph, though he was “a righteous man,” a man who followed the law, didn't turn her in. We can imagine that he sensed the innocence of the immaculate one. Nonetheless, he wanted the law to be fulfilled. How?

Think about it. If a man slipped quietly away from his betrothed, and she was found to be pregnant, suspicion, and the law's penalty, would then fall on him — for impregnating a woman outside marriage and then abandoning her.

By quietly divorcing her, Joseph was deciding that he, not Mary, would be the one ostracized — or stoned, in the worst case — for Mary's pregnancy.

By this interpretation Joseph was the original E5 man, willing to suffer in his wife's place. It's a lesson that wasn't lost on his son.

— Register Staff