Sunday 26 December 2010

St Matthew is the only one of the Evangelists who speaks of dreams, and he speaks of them six times in fact

MATTHEW 2:13-15,19-23
FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY OF JESUS, MARY AND JOSEPH
Homily Fr. Raymond  

St Matthew is the only one of the Evangelists who speaks of dreams, 
and he speaks of them six times in fact

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Raymond ....
To: 
...
Sent: Sun, 26 December, 2010 10:34:22
Subject: DREAMS
DREAMS
“.....an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream....”  St Matthew is the only one of the Evangelists who speaks of dreams, and he speaks of them six times in fact.  One of these dreams was a warning to the Magi not to return by the same route, so as to avoid Herod’s men.  Another was to the dream of Pilate’s wife at the Trial during Holy Week.  But the other four dreams all concerned Joseph.   
There was his first dream when he was advised not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife because her child had been conceived by the Holy Spirit. 
Then there was his second dream when he was warned to take the Mother and Child and flee into Egypt because Herod was seeking to do away with him. 
Then his third dream when he was told that he could go back to Israel because Herod was dead;
then his fourth dream when he was directed to Nazareth in Galilee that the child might grow up there and be called a Nazareen.  Not even St Luke, who gives us such intimate details of the annunciation and infancy of Jesus tells us about these things.  We are indebted to Matthew alone for these very colourful details surrounding the birth and infancy of Jesus.  So he must have had some very special reason for opening his Gospel with the account of all these dreams and I don’t think the reason is very hard to find. 
It is his way of underlining for us the fact that all these wonderful events were not just a fairy story but were very much the work of God.  They were the unravelling of the plans and purposes of God himself.  Matthew is underlining for us that if ever Heaven and the supernatural were at work in the affairs of this world it was in these days of the first Christmas.  And how wonderfully divine providence arranges all these events in such a simple yet compelling way that even the simplest of human minds can grasp them and rejoice in them.  How better could he have shown that he came for all, for the poor and the little as well as for the wise and the great.
The skills and artistry of the greatest of human dramatists from Shakespeare to Dante all fade into insignificance before the powerful artistry of the Christmas Drama.
   Shakespeare and Dante write their Dramas with pen and ink with words on parchment
but the Divine Dramatist writes with the finger of his creative power with real people and events on the pages of history.

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