Jean Gerson's Matin Readings for the Espousals of Mary and Joseph

For more details on Jean Gerson's idea for a Feast of the Espousals of Mary and Joseph, to be hold on the Thursday between the Third and Fourth Sundays of Advent, see my recent post, quoting some of his letters.  For the other texts of the Office Gerson wrote for this proposed feast, see this older post.  What I translate here are the Matins readings Gerson wrote for this office.  

In the Tridentine Divine Office, the Office of Matins was generally equivalent to the modern Office of Readings; however, while the Office of Readings can be read at any time of day, Matins was a midnight office (though its name means "morning").  The traditional arrangement of readings was three groups (Nocturns), each consisting of three readings.  For a normal day, these would consist Psalms or portions of Psalms; on feast days, or during certain liturgical seasons, some or all of these Psalms would be replaced by other readings (maybe Epistles; maybe lives of the saints; maybe Patristic writings, often commenting on particular Scriptural texts).  For his proposed feast, Gerson wrote a commentary on his selected Gospel text for the feast (Mt 1:24-25), which he split into three sections, to make up a single Nocturn.

Paragraph divisions in the third reading are my own addition, to aid in reading.  Note that my translation distinguishes two similar terms: bride (sponsa) and wife (coniunx), as well as their male counterparts.

 

Matins Readings for the Feast of the Espousals of Mary and Joseph

Jean Gerson
(1363-1429)

At that time: But Joseph, arising from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and accepted his wife, and did not know her until she bore her firstborn son, and he called His name Jesus (Mt 1:24-25).

First Reading

The consecration of the most chaste and most devoted marriage of the just Joseph and Mary Ever-Virgin should be recalled with veneration, beloved brethren.  By Matthew’s referring and the angel’s ordering and Joseph’s obeying, we know it was celebrated.  Let every century marvel at this, let every age rejoice, and let every state and sex exult.  Therefore, if the apostle handed on that any marriage performed according to rite, even among sinners and those joined in concupiscence, is a great sacrament in Christ and in the Church (cf. Eph 5:32), how much more so should that matrimony be judged, where virginity weds, where those who are marrying have no violation nor concupiscence, where, moreover, faith remained most whole and inseparable, where, unlike most [rursus pleros], there was none other than that very Jesus Who is God, blessed unto the ages.  What other [marriage] could be considered to have such praise?  The evangelic Isaiah once foretold this to the congregation of the just, saying, For a young man will dwell with a virgin (Is 62:5), that is, Joseph with Mary, as the authentic doctors explain it.  And, again, the groom will rejoice over the bride (Is 62:5).  Further, regarding the praises and prerogatives of those who are marrying, who are the just Joseph and Mary, no power of speech is enough to tell them, no tongue, either of men or of angels, would suffice to express them.  But you, etc.

First Responsory

The angel Gabriel was sent to Mary the virgin, betrothed to Joseph, announcing to word to her, and the virgin was terrified of the light.  Do not fear, Mary, for you have found grace with the Lord.  Behold, you will conceive and bear a son, and He will be called “Son of the Most High.”

Verse: Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you.

Behold, you will conceive.

Second Reading

Therefore, let your devotion think of how the new covenants of weddings are contracted with celebrated rites among nearly all peoples.  Invited friends come, they are adorned with more elegant clothing, they indulge in more luxurious foods, then they show joy in whatever ways they can.  For musical instruments are played, singing voices resound, and the earth is beat with free foot in rhythm.  For so we read that Ahasuerus made a magnificent feast for the joining and wedding with Esther (cf. Est 2:18).  So in the wedding of the younger Tobias with Sarah (cf. Tob 8:19), so with others in the Old Testament, we find marriages solemnized.  Here is that spiritual wedding-song, which we call the Song of Songs.  Furthermore, the evangelic parable hints at this, damning the man who entered the wedding-feast without a wedding garment (cf. Mt 22:12).  But you, etc.

Second Responsory

While the mother of Jesus was betrothed to Joseph.  Before they came together, she was found pregnant by the Holy Spirit.

Verse: But Joseph, her man, since he was just, and did not want to hand her over, he willed to dismiss her secretly.  

Before, etc.

Third Reading

Let these things be thus prefaced, so that we might show that the virginal marriage of the just Joseph and Mary is to be honored and celebrated.  Therefore, “Joseph accepted Mary his wife,” as the present Gospel says (Mt 1:24).  But how did he accept?  Was it secretly?  Was it in hiding?  Was it without the solemnity of a wedding?  Far be it for him to transgress the custom of his people.  Far be it from him to blush at doing openly what he did, by the angel’s command, after the first betrothal.  Therefore, he called together relatives, friends, and neighbors, with the festal apparatus.  Neither frugal poverty hindered him, nor did the holy man’s severity prohibit him from following the custom of his people.  And he who attends will judge this, just as it is read that the very mother of Jesus, now more aged and elder, adorned another wedding-feast, in Cana of Galilee, with her presence.  For so John her guardian wrote, that the mother of Jesus was there (Jn 2:1).  To which [wedding-feast] Jesus was invited, with His disciples, and He consecrated it, deeming it worthy of His first miracle, when, at His mother’s pious plea, He changed water into wine, and gave joy to the feasters.  

And we, beloved brethren, venerate the memory of such a mystery and such a sacrament with pious and sober jollity, which the evangelist Matthew explains, saying, But Joseph, arising from sleep (Mt 1:24).  Beautifully does he say that Joseph arose.  For “Joseph,” by his interpretation, means “increase” or “addition”: such was he who, always adding to his perfection daily, arranged ascents in his heart, arising and going from virtue to virtue, until God was seen below in Sion (cf. Ps 84:6-7); furthermore, rightly, as Luke says of Mary the virgin, betrothed to Joseph, that, after the revelation of the mystery of the Incarnation, arising, she went unto the mountain (Lk 1:39), so does Matthew tell of her husband Joseph, who knew the sacrament through his own angelic inspiration, saying, But Joseph, arising from sleep (Mt 1:24): both arose.  But it is not said of Mary that she arose from sleep, though perhaps she also did from sleep.  For the rational spirit has its sleep, which the royal prophet himself announces, saying: In peace, in it, I will sleep and rest (Ps 4:8).  Similarly the devoted soul in the Song speaks of it: I, she says, sleep, and my heart keeps vigil (Sgs 5:2).  Indeed, a man sleeps, and happily sleeps, when, having put to sleep and, in a sense, bound the lower powers of thought and affection, the spirit itself, set in the desire for eternity alone, reposes.  There it dwells on the holy mountain of the Lord, protected in the secret of the admirable tabernacle, in divine mist, in opulent rest, in its husband’s nuptial chamber, zealous and saying: I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, that you not arouse nor awaken love until it wills (Sgs 8:4).  There it sleeps, marveling at the law of God.  There the uncertain and hidden things in the wisdom of God become manifest to it.  

Let not Paul, nor Moses, nor Mary, be an example to us, but that just Joseph, to whom the super-admirable mystery of the Incarnation was revealed in sleep.  Joseph (the angel says), son of David, do not fear to accept Mary your wife, for what is born in her is of the Holy Spirit.  But she will bear a son, and you will call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins (Mt 1:20-21).  Therefore, in this sleep, and in others, later, Joseph received the prophetic spirit for all the differences of time, for the past, the present, and the future.  He knew that Mary was pregnant by the Holy Spirit, in regards to the past.  He knew that God was the boy whom she presently had in her womb, knowing, from the Sacred Scriptures, that none except God forgives sins (cf. Lk 5:21; Mk 2:7).  Therefore, He is God, of Whom this is said: you will call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.  And this is likewise a prophecy of future things.  

Furthermore, Mary arose (cf. Lk 1:39), but to what did she arise?  Certainly, so that, through eager action, she would minister to Elizabeth, the ancient woman and new mother, her kinswoman, where she was worried and stirred about many things (cf. Lk 10:41), but not troubled [ubi sollicita, ubi turbata...sed non conturbata], for she laughed assiduously in this [ridebat assidue in idipsum], namely, in that one thing that is necessary.  Likewise, Joseph is to be deemed to be arising when he does as the angel commanded him.  And he accepted his wife: we understand, with the celebrated rite and the apparatus of a wedding, where, similarly, he was concerned and vigilant towards Mary, through action.  The same Joseph first accepted the adolescent Mary as his bride in the temple of Jerusalem, where she had dwelled, dedicated to God, with the other virgins.  Joseph knew her before this, from familiar visitation, when, each year, he went to the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem.  For Mary was closely related to him, since Anna, her mother, after the man Joachim, married Cleophas, Joseph’s brother.  Further, Joseph, after some days, accepted Mary according to the manner of his people, in familiar cohabitation with him in Nazareth.  For so he did test his bride’s manners.   

There, in Nazareth, before Joseph and Mary came together (that is, by the solemn rite of a wedding, and thus we might say it, through the present words), Gabriel the angel announced to him what Luke the evangelist has handed down.  And thus, before they came together (Matthew says) Mary was found to be pregnant by the Holy Spirit (Mt 1:18).  And she was found in this way by that holy Joseph, her groom, alone, with Mary his bride revealing the mystery of the Incarnation to him, just as Cecilia revealed the angelic mystery to Valerian.  Having heard these things, Joseph mulled over many things, struck with a kind of stupor by such newness.  While thinking of these things, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in sleep, saying to him: Joseph, son of David, do no fear to accept Mary your wife, for what is born in her is of the Holy Spirit (Mt 1:21).  A little later on, the context of the present Gospel is added: And Joseph, arising from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him (Mt 1:24).  And who is the angel?  Probably it was Gabriel, whom we read had already twice been sent regarding this mystery of the Incarnation, as if specially deputized for this, since, just as Christ’s conception was announced by him, so he foretold the birth of John, His forerunner.  

There follows: And he did not know her until she bore her firstborn son (Mt 1:25).  There were those who, finding an occasion in these words, blasphemed against the blessed Mary’s perpetual virginity, against the just Joseph’s most religious chastity, among whom there was a certain Helvidius, a heretic, against whom Blessed Jerome wrote copiously and religiously.  And since that contumelious error is now (by the will of God and the tradition of the saints) far removed from all the hearts of the faithful, no one thinks it necessary to bring up this dispute in a curious way.  But we, conscious participants in such a sacrament, let us lift up our hearts, with our hands, to the Lord.  Let us ask that we, through this virginal and temporal sign, might avail to be participants in that eternal and happy marriage, where they do not marry nor are given in marriage fleshily, but they are, spiritually, like the angels of God (cf. Mt 22:30), married to God alone, in the presence of Him Whom Joseph named Jesus, Who is God, blessed unto the ages.  Amen.  

Third Responsory

Joseph, son of David, do not fear to accept Mary your wife.  For what is born in her is of the Holy Spirit.

Verse: But Joseph, arising from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and accepted his wife.

For what, etc.

Source: Ioannis Gersonii, Doctoris et Cancellarii Parisiensis, Quarta pars Operum… (Paris, 1606), 219A-222B.

Text and Translation ©2024 Brandon P. Otto.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.  Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the translator.