FATHER JOSEPH and THE DAMSEL OF ISRAEL
Saint Peter said of David, “Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that
God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to
the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne;…”.
According to the ‘flesh’, the scripture teaches, Christ
would be raised up. But Christ was not
of the flesh of David, how do we explain this?
Saint Joseph was a descendant of Solomon, and any son of his
would be disqualified from being King in Israel as a result of the wickedness
of the kings of Israel before the Babylonian captivity.
“As I live, saith the Lord, if Jechonias the son of
Joakim the king of Juda were a ring on my right hand, I would pluck him
thence. And I will give thee into the
hand of them that seek thy life, and into the hand of them whose face thou
fearest, and into the hand of Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon, and into the hand
of the Chaldeans. And I
will send thee, and thy mother that bore thee, into a strange country, in which
you were not born, and there you shall die:
And they shall not return into the land, whereunto they lift up their
mind to return thither. Is this man Jechonias an earthen and a
broken vessel? is he a vessel wherein there is no pleasure? why are they cast
out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they know not? O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the
Lord. Thus saith the Lord: Write this
man barren, a man that shall not prosper in his days: for there shall not be
a man of his seed that shall sit upon the throne of David, and have power any
more in Juda.” [Jer. 22:24-30]
The Scripture however uses Joseph’s blood line to establish
Christ’s right to the throne…
“And Josias begot Jechonias and his brethren in the transmigration of Babylon. And after the transmigration of Babylon, Jechonias begot Salathiel…
And Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. ”
[Matthew 1:11-16]
The question is, how
does Christ establish His right to the throne if not through Saint Joseph’s
lineage back to King David?
Furthermore, if
Christ had none of Joseph’s blood in His veins – whose blood was it?
Consider the Gospel
according to Saint Luke – Chapter 1:26-35
“And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from
God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man
whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.
And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is
with thee: blessed art thou among women. Who having heard, was troubled at his
saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be. And
the angel said to her: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God.
Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou
shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of
the most High; and the Lord God shall
give unto him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house
of Jacob for ever. And of his kingdom
there shall be no end. And Mary said
to the angel: How shall this be done, because I know not man? And the angel
answering, said to her: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of
the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be
born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”
It’s clear from Saint Luke’s account of Mary’s visitation
from the Angel Gabriel that Christ was conceived of a Virgin, the Virgin Mary. Saint Joseph was not involved in any way,
knew nothing of it until he himself received an angelic visitation.
“But while he thought on these things, behold the angel of
the Lord appeared to him in his sleep, saying: Joseph, son of David, fear not
to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her, is of the
Holy Ghost. “ [Matthew,
Chapter 1:20]
Christ was conceived
within the womb of Mary in a supernatural way that defies explanation. It is a dogma of our faith.
This is where the Blood of Christ comes from – Heaven; His right to the throne, from God.
In the nucleus of the cell, the chromosomes are grouped in
23 pairs. 22 of these pairs are
identical to each other. The 23rd
chromosome is either a pair of X chromosomes, or a pairing of an X and a Y
chromosome. If it’s two X chromosomes
than the baby is a female – If an X and a Y then the baby is a male.
The female egg has 22 pairs of chromosomes and an X
chromosome. The male seed has 22 pairs
of chromosomes and either as X or a Y chromosome. All of these chromosomes separate and then
one of the pairs joins the counterpart from the other sex. When the XY chromosome in the seed separates
there is no genetic transfer, as in the separation of the double X in the egg. All of these chromosomes join up again in
fertilization and determine the sex of the baby. In any case, the genetic information needed
to create blood comes from the seed and not the egg.
In addition to the DNA contributed by the seed, it may also
contribute some cellular machinery necessary for incorporation of the male
donor DNA into the zygote genome and possibly some messenger RNA. It does not
contribute blood, only the potential for the developing embryo to synthesize
its own blood based on the differentiation program contained in its DNA.
These 46 tiny structures in the cell nucleus called
chromosomes are comprised of deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA. It is our genetic instructions for life. And since Christ was the Son of God, He was a
male and had a Y chromosome, and since He was a human man and had blood in His
veins, this blood of necessity came from something other than the egg of Mary. Several of the genes on the Y chromosome that
concern male development have been identified and located but the “Master” gene
has proven to be illusive. (Pun intended)
The Y chromosome in a man’s seed is an almost exact copy of
the Y chromosome in the cells of his body.
This is because, the XY split in the man’s seed does not transfer
information very easily so all of his sons will carry this same Y chromosome;
all the way back to Adam.
The mitochondria of the cell, outside of the nucleus, are
where the genetic history of the woman can be found, in their mitochondrial
DNA. The seed’s mitochondria are
discarded after fertilization, with only the female mitochondria in the new
cell. This can trace each man woman and
child back to
Eve.
“For we have not a high priest, who can not have
compassion on our infirmities: but one tempted in all things like as we are,
without sin.” [Hebrews 4:15]
God became a man, that men might become gods.
During gestation there is no blood transfer from the mother
to the baby within the womb. The
membrane of the embryonic sack does not allow blood to be transferred from
mother to child, only the nutrients necessary for the baby to thrive and grow
to maturity.
“For thou art he that hast drawn me out of the womb: my hope from the breasts of my mother. I was cast upon thee from the womb. From my mother's womb thou art my God,” [Palms 21:10-11]
"And it came to pass, as he spoke these things, a certain woman from the crowd, lifting up her voice, said to him: Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the paps that gave thee suck.
But he said:, Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it."
[Luke 11;27-28]
Our Blessed Saviour would have this woman, and all of us realize that is was His Mother that He was refering to in Her readiness and obedience to hear and keep the Words of Her Son, the Word to Whom She Herself had given Flesh, that was much more of a sustinence to Him than the milk of Her breasts. For it was Her pulsating Immacculate and sinless Heart from which flowed the necessary nutrients to produce the life giving Milk of the Word for The Babe who would become the son of man.
For we are saved by hope... [Romans 8:24]
The hope of the milk of the word.
And hence the devotion to
Our Lady of La Leche is the first shrine dedicated to
Our Blessed Mother in the United States!
The Holiness between Mother and Child in this moment is unspeakable. It is inutterable.
We are thus left with the question of the Blood of Christ and its origin. The baby’s blood does not come from the
mother’s egg during fertilization and the mother’s blood does not mix with the
baby’s blood during pregnancy.
It is
interesting to note; however, that during childbirth the baby’s blood is
incorporated within the mother’s body in a certain way. Christ’s Blood was inside the body of Mary -
not the other way around.
It truly is a
mystery, life that is - And the origin of Christ’s Precious Holy Blood that was poured out for our salvation…?
So then, where did
Jesus Christ get His Blood?
Let us consider the possibility that God must have specially
created that part of Christ's DNA - de novo.
In general usage, de novo is a Latin expression meaning
"from the beginning," "afresh," "anew,"
"beginning again." It may refer to:
In bioinformatics,
de novo is a form of sequencing, as in "de novo peptide sequencing."
De novo may also be a term used to define methods for making predictions about
biological features using only a computational model without extrinsic
comparison to existing data. In this context, it may be sometimes
interchangeable with the Latin term ab initio.
The Latin term ab initio means from the beginning and is
used in several contexts:
In bioinformatics:
a term used to define methods for making predictions about biological features
using only a computational model without extrinsic comparison to existing data.
In this context, it may be sometimes interchangeable with the Latin term de
novo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioinformatics
So where did Jesus
Christ get His Holy Precious Blood? De novo?? Hmmm?
The concept as articulated is fascinating, how a scientific
mind that has been influenced by theological considerations would think of
Christ’s origins in this way. De novo -
"from the beginning," "afresh," "anew,"
"beginning again.”
I do need to point out however that the scripture clearly
teaches that all of creation was completed on the sixth day. Nothing has been created by God since then,
including any de novo creation it would seem.
So where then did
Jesus Christ get His Blood?
This is where the Blood of Christ comes from – Heaven; His right to the throne, from God.
In conclusion: God created Adam, and then Eve from Adam’s
rib. And thus started the human race,
with the blood of Adam, and not Eve, flowing in the veins of every man, woman
and child, except Christ!
And thus, once again, scientific discovery proves Catholic
Dogma. Original sin is passed on to
Adam’s posterity through Adam and not Eve, although it was Eve who was deceived
and not Adam. It was Eve who was taken
in the transgression, nevertheless sin entered into the world by one man,
Adam. And death reigned even over them
that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who was the
figure of him that was to come.
So now, let us return our attention to the issue of tracing Joseph’s
lineage back to King David to establish Christ’s right to the throne.
As stated earlier, any son of Saint Joseph according to the
flesh would be disqualified from being King in Israel [Jeremias 22:24-30]. But yet the
first chapter of Saint Matthew’s Gospel uses Joseph’s lineage to establish this
very thing. And Saint Peter himself
attests to this fact; that God would raise up Christ to sit on David’s throne
according to the flesh. How then does
Christ assert His right to the throne of His father David if He is not of his
flesh?
“And the Pharisees
being gathered together, Jesus asked them, Saying: What think you of Christ?
whose son is he? They say to him: David's.
He saith to them: How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying:
The Lord said to my Lord, Sit on my right hand, until I make thy enemies thy
footstool? If David then call him Lord,
how is he his son?
And no man was able to
answer him a word; neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more
questions. [Matthew, Chapter 22: 41-46]
How is it that Christ is the son of David and yet his
Lord? Christ is David’s son because his
lineage is traced back to him through Saint Joseph according to the flesh, but
the Royalty of King David is transferred to Christ from Joseph through his
virginal betrothal engagement to Saint Mary.
The man Jesus Christ is of the flesh of Mary His Mother, not Joseph, but
yet His royalty is obtained from King David through Joseph’s one-flesh marriage
to Mary. Joseph and Mary were
One-Flesh. And Christ received His flesh
from Saint Mary.
It was the Virginal
Marriage bond between Joseph and Mary that allowed Christ to obtain Royalty
according to the flesh. Christ received
His Royal Flesh from Mary who became Royalty through Her Marriage to Joseph who
in turn could trace his lineage back to King David.
That means that Saint Joseph was King of Israel and passed this Title on to his Son Jesus Christ upon his death. Think about that…
Jesus, The King of the Jews, was the inscription above Golgotha's Cross: What I have written I have written, Pontius Pilate was quoted as having said, after he washed his hands and sealed his fate...
Say not that He was, but only that He had said that he was! But it was to late. It was finished.
Christ had Truly entered into His Kingdom of His Heavenly Father, as He hung from a cross overlooking a valley in Nazareth where lay buried His beloved Saint father Joseph.
Saint Joseph, The King of Israel who had raised up a God for a King.
There is now no obstacle to Christ assuming the throne of
David, a man after God’s own Heart. He
was indeed a descendant of King David without a drop of his blood in His Heart! His
Royalty was obtained from His father’s lineage back to David it’s true; but
then transferred by marriage through Saint Mary, having obtained Her flesh as His own and not Joseph’s
when Mary gave Her yes to Her Sovereign at the words of Saint Gabriel, “Hail,
full of Grace!” - Who brought the Blood of Christ with Him, for the Holy One conceived
within Her, was of the Holy Ghost!
Joseph’s marriage to Mary was a Royal Marriage between the
King of Israel and his Queen, Queen Mary.
And their Divine Son was the Heir to the Throne.
Christ truly can claim His right to the throne of His father
David, because He received His royalty according to the flesh from His Mother,
who in turn had received it from Saint Joseph through their virginal one-flesh
marriage bond.
This is how Christ can be the son of David and yet be his
Lord. He was indeed the son of David
according to the flesh, having received all of His flesh from His Mother. And it was Royal flesh because Mary was
one-flesh with Saint Joseph, the King of Israel!
The two become one-flesh.
And He was David’s Lord because His Blood came from another world – It came from Heaven!
But perhaps a more
intriguing question still, is not how King David can have a Son who is his
Lord; but rather, how can Joseph have a Son who is his King?
How can a carpenter‘s Son become King – of all of
Israel? Just who was this man, Saint
Joseph? A King by needs be, must have a
father for his King. He must have a King
for a father, that is. But this is
exactly what Jesus had; for He was the Prince of Peace and His Mother a
Queen!
A King has a Prince for
a Son. O Saint Joseph! Saint Joseph! The
King of Kings and Lord of Lords you had for a Son – And what does that make of thee!?!
I will put enmities
between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy
head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.
[Genesis 3:15]
This verse of Scripture reveals the Proto-evangelium or
first Gospel where we see Mary crushing the head of the serpent by Her seed
Jesus Christ when He deals the death blow at the Cross.
But wait, let’s back up and consider the creation account of
[Genesis
2:24] for a moment:
“Then the Lord God
cast a deep sleep upon Adam: and when he was fast asleep, he took one of his
ribs, and filled up flesh for it. And the Lord God built the rib which he took
from Adam into a woman: and brought her to Adam. And Adam said: This now is bone of my bones,
and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of
man. Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his
wife: and they shall be two in one flesh.” [Genesis, Chapter 2:21-24]
Christ we know was the second Adam, and Mary the second
Eve. She reversed what our first mother
had said. Her yes opened the way for our salvation.
Adam we see, and of Eve we've taken notice; but what of this
other man in these verses?
“...a man shall leave father and mother, and
shall cleave to his wife:” A
man? What man? It is none other than Saint Joseph. And the marriage spoken of here is the one
between Joseph and Mary.
Genesis 3:15 is often referred to as:
“THE PROTOEVANGELIUM OR FIRST GOSPEL"
Genesis 2:24 is a foreshadowing of the marriage between
Saint Mary and Her Joseph,
just as sure as
Genesis 3:15 is where we see Christ
and His Mary.
Genesis 2:24 can be referred to as:
"THE 'PROTOMARITO' OR 'FIRST MARRIAGE'" ~ RbM
Perhaps another look at Ephesians chapter five would be
in order here:
"Let women be subject
to their husbands, as to the Lord: Because the husband is the head of the wife,
as Christ is the head of the church. He is the saviour of his body. Therefore
as the church is subject to Christ, so also let the wives be to their husbands
in all things. Husbands, love your
wives, as Christ also loved the church, and delivered himself up for it:
That he might sanctify
it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life: That he might present it to himself a glorious
church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any; such thing; but that it should be
holy, and without blemish. So also ought
men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife, loveth
himself. For no man ever hated his own
flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, as also Christ doth the church: Because
we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
For this cause shall a
man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall
be two in one flesh. This is a great sacrament; but I speak in Christ and in
the church." [Ephesians 5:22-32]
Saint Paul hearkens back to the Genesis account cited before
to describe the relationship between Christ and His Church. For “this cause” he says. What cause? For the establishment of the Sacrament of
marriage, for without it there is no Catholic Religion!
Many still find this a “Mystery” when the Apostle Paul
speaks concerning Christ and the Church.
But the Mystery becomes a Sacrament when we understand the preceding
verse:
“For this cause shall a man leave
his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in
one flesh.” [Ephesians
5:31]
This is the cause, or reason, for the betrothal
of Joseph and Mary. Christ must be born
with both a Mother and a father and the two
must be husband and wife. This is unique in all of human history, a
virginal marriage that leads to a virginal birth.
Only the betrothal period of engagement
within Jewish culture could make this possible. Joseph and Mary were married. Mary was betrothed to Joseph in marriage
before Her visitation from the Angel Gabriel.
She was overshadowed by the Holy Ghost to conceive Her own Savoiur, only
after She was given to Saint Joseph
in marriage. Mary gave Her Immaculate
Heart to Her Saviour, only after She
had given it in marriage to Saint Joseph.
Her first Love was and always will be Saint Joseph!
Christ was Conceived under the most unusual of circumstances
to the modern reader. Peculiar to Jewish
custom was the betrothal period of engagement.
No other culture practiced it in this way because it developed as a
direct result of Abraham’s God and His influence in his future
generations. We can see it clearly,
contained in the account of Genesis if looked for carefully. We see evidence of it throughout Old
Testament Scripture – the betrothal.
The betrothal period of engagement is interwoven into the
tapestry of the creation account as an expression of the Divine Nature. And we see it manifested through the marriage
of Saint Mary and Joseph, King of a new Kingdom on earth.
It was during this time of engagement, usually about a year,
that the two who were to consummate their marriage at a future date were
considered legally married for all intents and purposes. The two were married in the eyes of the law, and
although the marriage was not yet consummated, it was considered to be valid and
legally binding, requiring a legal decree of divorce in order to end it.
It was during this betrothal period of engagement between
Joseph and Mary that Christ was conceived within the womb of Saint Mary. We know this because the angel told Joseph,
"...fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her, is of the Holy Ghost..."
Christ was Conceived AFTER Saint Joseph and Saint Mary were married; but, BEFORE Joseph
'took Mary unto himself'' to then live together as husband and wife. There was no scandal here. Why else would the angel tell St. Joseph not to fear to take Mary as his wife if he already had...???
No other arrangement would have been
acceptable, other than for the Christ Child to be born to both a Mother and a
father, and for the two to be one-flesh; in a marriage that was valid in the
eyes of God and yet not be consummated.
Nothing else could have made it possible for a Virgin to be
legally married and to conceive of the Holy Ghost, than for Joseph and Mary to
be in a betrothal period of engagement.
The two became one-flesh, and what God had
joined together no man could separate.
The fulfillment of [Genesis 2:24].
John the Baptist cry in the wilderness announced the end of
the law through the prophets and ushered in the Grace and Truth that was to
come through Jesus Christ.
Behold the Kingdom of God is among you!
It was this Kingdom that Saint Joseph ruled
over from a little house,
in a town called Nazareth.
"Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of Heaven is greater than he." [Matthew 11:11]
Christ was referring here to none other than His father, Saint Joseph!
This idea “to cleave”
or to be joined together is fundamental to the Hebrew concept of true
religion. It is used to describe the
kind of relationship the Israelite's were to have with God and can be seen
throughout the Book of Deuteronomy, in chapter 13:4 as one example:
“Follow the Lord your
God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and hear his voice: him you shall
serve, and to him you shall cleave.”
And it is used in the Book of Joshua chapter 22:5, alongside
other phrases such as love the Lord your God, walk in all His ways, keep all of
His commandments, and serve Him with all your heart and soul.
“Yet so that you
observe attentively, and in work fulfill the commandment and the law which
Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you: that you love the Lord your God,
and walk in all his ways, and keep all his commandments, and cleave to him, and serve him with all
your heart, and with all your soul.”
To “cleave” unto
the Lord is the term used to describe the relationship between God and His
chosen people as well as the term used to describe the relationship between
husband and wife that results in the two becoming one-flesh.
It holds true for the body of Christ as well:
“Because we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of
his bones.” [Ephisians 5:30]
“And Adam said: This
now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman,
because she was taken out of man. Wherefore a man shall leave father and
mother, and shall cleave to his
wife: and they shall be two in one flesh.”
[Genesis 2:23-24]
Now we can begin to see from this Old Testament covenant
theology that bone and flesh as it is used in Scripture denotes kinship or
blood relation. And so it was with Adam
and Eve:
The marriage vow creates
a bond that is closer than blood relations.
Cleave: To “cling” or “stick to someone” establishes
the idea of the one-flesh bond in Genesis chapter two.
Judah “stuck to”
David their King during Sheba’s revolt in II Samuel chapter 20:1-2.
“And there happened to
be there a man of Belial, whose name was Seba, the son of Bochri, a man of
Jemini: and he sounded the trumpet, and said: We have no part in David, nor
inheritance in the son of Isai: return to thy dwellings, O Israel.] And all
Israel departed from David, and followed Seba the son of Bochri: but the men of
Juda stuck to their king from the
Jordan unto Jerusalem.”
Joseph and Mary fulfill this prophecy in Genesis of the two
becoming one-flesh. The Royal blood line
remains in tack from King David all the way to Saint Joseph through Mary to
Christ. The one-flesh marriage bond is
closer that blood relations, and since Mary was in a one-flesh marriage with
Saint Joseph, She became Royalty Herself, and Jesus the Christ then receives
his Holy Spotless Royal bone and flesh through His conception in the womb of
His Mother, Joseph’s Spouse; and His Blood is of
the Holy Ghost, so He escapes the curse of Jechonias, it could
not be imposed upon Him. [Matthew 1:11]
FATHER JOSEPH and THE DAMSEL OF ISRAEL
To give up his right,
to his Virgin Wife,
Is a request only the
Godhead could have made,
Of a man of great
faith, Father Joseph was his name,
A simple carpenter by
trade.
Now the Israeli
Messiah, who first was a Child,
Through a betrothal
commitment was conceived.
His Mother was
chosen, but a father was needed,
It could have been no
other way.
For the Christ Child
must be born with both a Mother and father,
And the two must be
husband and Wife.
For the plan of the
ages, the salvation of man,
Would require that
one man should be bidden.
A great man of faith,
Father Joseph was his name,
A simple carpenter by
trade.
And being great with
Child, and not of his own,
What could we expect
him to believe...
For being mindful to
put his betrothed Wife away,
And persuaded again
in a dream.
The Damsel of Israel
is beloved anyway,
By this great man of
faith, Father Joseph was his name.
For he could have
said no, and been just in doing so,
But instead, he chose
to believe.
~ RbM
