Thursday, March 19, 2026
Solemnity of Saint Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Children, go where I send thee
Joseph, do not be afraid
to take Mary your wife into your home.
It is through the Holy Spirit
 that this child has been conceived in her.
She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus.
When I see Jesus’ father Joseph, I feel warm and safe. In Urbana where we are at the moment and Austin, too, the weather is crazy and scary and in Kankakee last week killed someone. My friend a policeman there told me a tree fell straight through a man’s roof and impaled him right there sleeping in his bed. No visible harm to the house, and it was a couple of days before he was discovered. Dead.
So I close my eyes and pray. It’s raining, it’s pouring …
Hey I got an idea, we could all play hide and go seek inside. And I’ll be it.
Oh! That’s a lullaby that Peter and Paul sang to Mary about the rain … cozy inside the old man is snoring, and I’m curled up beside him under the softest blanket … sleeping too. Or trying to.
Old man Joseph got into bed, and he bumped his head, and he couldn’t get up in the morning.
Wish I may, wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.
And what’s that wish?
Guess, Mama, guess!
Joseph sleeps, he’s worked hard all day.
Rain rain go away, come again some other day.
Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five, forty
Your house is on fire, and your children … they will burn.
Jesus looks up at his mama. What are you saying, Mama?
Let the rain put the fire out for now. It will return, this holy fire. And we’ll be alone then, without Joseph … and … and … what did the old man say in the temple?
Won’t be my father’s Jack? No! I won’t be my father’s Jill. I’ll be a fiddler’s wife and fiddle.
Mama, what did the old man say?
He was a wonderful old man named Simeon, and he sang and sang and and told us,
Behold this child is appointed
for the fall and rising of many in Israel,
so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.
And what else did he say, mama? What did he also say, about you?
And a sword will pierce through your own soul also.
Oh, mama, I know what he said! Please don’t say it again. I don’t want to hear it in my head. Let’s just go to sleep now, with daddy, and listen to the rain, and forget the fire, listen to the snores. Can we just do that now, Mama?
Besides, don’t you want to know what my wish is?
Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, wish I may, wish I might …
Forty-five, fifty, fifty-five, sixty, sixty-five, seventy, seventy-five, eighty.
What is your wish, my son Jesus?
Mama, I wish that we could be in this room under this roof with this rain pouring outside forever and ever! I wish we could have enough to eat and drink and that we could all fall asleep in the rain and have wonderful dreams about heaven. And I wish that father Joseph would not die, and no swords would pierce you, and that we would just sing and sing of the Lord’s great love forever.
Eighty-five, ninety, ninety-five, a hundred.
Ready or not, here I come!
When Joseph awoke,
he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him
and took his wife into his home.
And Mary kept all this. She pondered her son’s words in her heart. Breathing ever so gently she waited for the rain to stop and Joseph to wake up and go back to making chairs and a table for the mayor of Nazareth. Listening to the angel, Joseph had led his pregnant wife to Bethlehem, and then listening again taken them at midnight south to Egypt. Choirs of angels accompanied them when years later they came back home to Nazareth.
Rain, rain, go away, come again some other … some other day.
children, go where I send thee … born, born, born in Bethlehem.
They listen to the rain pounding on their roof, these precious moments, no longer afraid even as they wait for the sword that would pierce, and in each others’ arms, they are happy.
I will be a father to him,
and he shall be a son to me,
and your house and your kingdom shall endure forever.
Allee allee in free!
(2 Samuel 7, Psalm 89, Romans 4, Psalm 84, Matthew 1)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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