The prophecy of Emmanuel is fulfilled in Jesus, as the angel announces to Joseph. God is with us, but what does it mean to welcome his coming? Acaz rejects the sign of God, because he senses that it would force him to get out of his visions and change his plans. He declares that he does not want to tempt God, but in fact it is he who does not want to allow himself to be transformed by the encounter with God. The attitude of Joseph, who remains available to open his own discernment – what he was “considering” – to the word of God and in its light. It is beautiful the way in which the evangelist describes the attitude of Joseph, able to decline together two verbs that we hardly reconcile with one another. Joseph “considers”, making use of his human faculties of judgment and reflection, but at the same time “dreams”, thus allowing his way of seeing things to let himself be illuminated by the dream of God, by his different vision. This is what it means to recognize that God is with us: to welcome his dream that changes our gaze. Joseph welcomes the dream of God and welcomes Mary into his home as his bride. The God with us changes our gaze and always gives us new ways of living the relationships between us, which become the place and epiphany of his presence.

Commentary by Comunità di Dumenza

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves, Prinknash Abbey