The mystery of St Joseph (1)

Just as a scientist can, by using a microscope on some small piece of matter, discover great truths, so the mind of the Church is able to discover great truths in even the tiniest fragment of Scripture (for example, the doctrines of the Holy Trinity and of the Immaculate Conception, which are implied but not directly stated in Scripture). What can we tell from the few precious lines we possess about St Joseph? These few lines tell us he was a "just man", that he at first doubted his role vis a vis Mary and her Child, but that he successfully protected them both, taking instruction from angels in his dreams. On 18 March 2009, Pope Benedict spoke of him in a homily:

Is Christianity Esoteric?

“For He was sent not only to be known but also to remain hidden” – Origen.

The term “esotericism” dates from the nineteenth century (along with “mysticism” and “occultism”). In his book Guenonian Esoterism and Christian Mystery, Jean Borella describes it as a form of hermeneutic “apt for the opening of our consciousness to the presence of the Spirit hidden in revealed forms and sometimes under the appearance of the most baffling symbols,” developed for an age in which the sense for symbolism and tradition has long been in retreat – relating this also to Saint Paul’s contrast between the letter and the spirit, and the mystagogical catechesis of the Alexandrian Church Fathers.

Strictly speaking, there is no Esoteric Christianity, in the sense of a secret teaching different from that which you will find in the Catechism and known only by a inner ring or elite, because Christianity by its nature dissolves boundaries like that. It is itself a kind of Esoteric Judaism turned inside out and offered to the world. There is something bizarre about this. It is pearls cast before swine, riches trampled in the mire. Jesus talks of this in the parable of the Wedding Banquet, where the Lord in the story drags the hedgerows and street corners for riff-raff to fill his table, the honoured guests having declined to attend.

There is no Esoteric Christianity; there is, however, a Christian Esoterism. (See longer article.) Anyone can pick up a pearl, but only a few know what to do with it. "Even so truly a ‘church of the people’ as the Catholic Church does not abolish genuine esotericism. The secret path of the saints is never denied to one who is really willing to follow it. But who in the crowd troubles himself over such a path?" – Hans Urs von Balthasar.