Transcription
John Paul II in the Theology of the Body talks about how physical parenthood is actually oriented towards spiritual parenting. Like we often treat spiritual parenthood like it's the consolation. It's what you get if you can't have kids. You know, I would hear that all the time when I was single or when we were struggling with infertility. Well, you can at least be a spiritual mother. It's like, no, it's not. You can at least be a spiritual mother. It's like >> that's the most >> you are called to be a spiritual mother. Everyone is called to be like physical parenthood teaches us about what spiritual parenthood is. Like it's the physical roadmap to understanding what we're all made for. And so when you understand it that way, it changes how you think about St. Joseph. It changes how you think about your own fatherhood.
Hi, I'm Dr. Scott Han and I want to welcome you to The Road to Emmaus, a podcast from the St. Paul Center. And today, it is a special pleasure for me to welcome our guest, Emily Stimson Chapman. Great to have you back.
>> It is so good to be back, Scott.
>> And especially to have you in time for the feast of St. Joseph.
>> Yes.
>> Oh my goodness.
>> I know. One of our favorite feasts. And not just because it falls in Lent and we get to have meat and and chocolate on that day, but because we love St. Joseph.
>> Yeah. And you and I have collaborated on a number of projects over the years. You know, I'm thinking of uh of the book on evangelization as well as Hope to Die. You have become, well, I mean, you're a neighbor, you're a wife, you're a mom, you're an author. You also are on Substack. You and your husband Chris have what is it called? Visitation Sessions Available podcast. Yeah. And most recently, you have written this massive children's story bible, The Story of Stories.
>> Story of All Stories.
>> The Story of All Stories.
>> Story of All Stories.
>> Yeah. And we actually had a conversation about that on The Road to Emmaus before.
>> And it has sold, I think, over a quarter of a million copies.
>> We're on the way. We're on the way.
>> And a Spanish, a Spanish translation.
>> Spanish translation is coming out this Christmas. Uh, there are nine other languages that have translations that have been licensed. I think we've got a toddler edition that's in progress right now, a board book that tells the story of salvation history. So, yeah. I um, I started learning and studying all this as your grad student a long, long time ago. And it's like I've >> I moved on to working with you on all the Journey Through Scripture studies and helping it with the the editing and writing of those. And I just want to thank you. Press pause for a moment and say, I remember as a grad student, the paper you wrote on the Holy Spirit and the fact that you were taking a a semi-deep dive into Shaban, my favorite of the time, you know. And so that's what made it easy for me to uh invite you to recruit you to be a kind of administrative assistant. But we found out shortly thereafter, you were the most overqualified of all. And so, you know, I I felt as though we were uh springboarding you into so much more. And here we are.
Uh, I want to begin by identifying a a a new genre for me. You know, as I mentioned, Evangelizing Catholics, we've worked on together, also Hope to Die. Um, but now you have become much more than my muse channeling my thoughts. You have become a co-author. And you have really done most of the heavy lifting for four consecutive children's books that basically represent applied typology for kids. You know, I've often said to paraphrase, you know, what uh Mark Twain once said, that history doesn't rhyme, it doesn't repeat itself, but it it sure does rhyme. And that divine poetry is what we call typology. But you do biblical typology with me in these children's books, or what I call my grandchildren's books, in a way that restores the poetic, the iambic pentameter. Especially in the first one that we did was Mary, Mother of All, >> which was drawn from Hail Holy Queen, the Mother of God >> in the Word of God. And then The Supper of the Lamb, I wonder what that was from, The Lamb's Supper, focusing on the Eucharist and then recently, Lord Have Mercy, which is really a great book for preparing kids for for First Confession and just looking at the the medicine of God's mercy and all of that sort of thing. But most recently, and one I really celebrate is Joseph, Keeper of the King.
>> Yes.
>> That has just come out in time for >> comes out this week.
>> St. Joseph. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Brand new.
>> Tell me about what you, I mean, as I mentioned, you do the heavy lifting. You do the poetic prose, but this, you described as being somewhat more masculine in its poetic style. Explain what you're up to.
>> Yeah. So, you know, when when you and um Melissa, one of the editors here at Emmaus Road, approached me about doing this, the idea was, "Okay, Emily, you're able to help Scott make sense, you know, two adults. We think you could do this for kids, too. Let's see." And as a mom, um, I know that the books that my children remember the most are the rhyming ones. You know, the the rhymes get in your head. It's how people used to, I mean, know, people learn through oral traditions, through poetry. And before we were a written culture, we were an oral oral culture. And the that rhyme and rhythm and meter helps stick it in your head. And I was like, well, if we want the kids to understand the history of salvation um in children's books, obviously Story of All Stories doesn't rhyme. You can help people to understand that. What do we, I'd still be working on that. Um, but, you know, the short little children's books, how do we really get them into their heads so that they know the story of, you know, the the Mass and they know the story of Mary the same way they know the story of Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site or, you know, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom or these stories. So, uh, yeah. So, I set out to do something that was, you know, faithfully took your your books, your theology, but then brought it down to a level kids could understand and then put it in a language that they would remember. Um, and having really good rhyme where all the words rhyme correctly at the end and not, you know, how sometimes you're reading children's books and it's supposed to rhyme and then it all falls apart. And I didn't want that to happen. And meter, because meter is so important for it, having the right rhythm. And this book, I wanted it to have a masculine rhythm. Um, and maybe it's not me. Maybe I don't know because the first, when once I got the first line of the book, it had to set itself. I was like, well, that has to be what that, that's just it. That's the rhyme pattern. And as I was going, I realized it was a much more mas >> it gallops like it, it has a very sort of strength to it that the other, the other rhymes are a little, the meter is a little gentler. The the rhythm is a little more >> the divine poetry that we find in the Word of God. You know, we can describe it in terms of typology, but it always ends up unveiling the relationship between the Old and the New. You know, as a St. Athanasius might say, "The new is concealed in the old, and the old is unveiled, revealed, and fulfilled in the new." And I think that this is something that really grabs the mind and heart of adults. But I think we've underestimated the extent to which kids can get it too, especially if the divine poetry of typology and scripture is put into this kind of poetic form. You know, then the form and the content are a match. They converge in a nice way. So, when we look at Mary, Mother of All, we're looking at the New Eve, but we also weave into it the idea of the Ark of the Covenant, as well as the mother being the queen mother in the Davidic kingdom. And likewise, in The Lamb's Supper, we're drawing from the Passover, you know, we're drawing from the fulfillment of the Lamb of God in Christ in the Eucharist and every Mass as well. Um, and then likewise, Lord Have Mercy. You look at how God could forgive in the Old through sacrifices, but really it's what Jesus is doing in the Gospels. But I must say, I suppose I shouldn't have a favorite, but I do, at least for now. And that is Joseph, Keeper of the King. You know, I I find that when you look at Luke, you're seeing the uh Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary. But when you consider Matthew's Gospel, and since we're Year A right now, it is Matthew's Gospel. You see the angelic Annunciation to Matthew, the son of David. I'm sorry. In Matthew, you have Joseph, the son of David. And it's like, well, wait a second. Uh, back up a few verses. You just identified Joseph as the son of Jacob. That's his father's name. Why would the angel then slip and say Joseph the son of David? Well, because we're looking not just at his dad, but his Davidic dynasty, his own royal dignity. And that's the that's in a certain sense the fabric that we are weaving into this story. And uh, I love it.
>> Yeah.
>> I mean, St. Joseph is so, you know, he's the silent saint. It's very hard in some ways to do a book about St. Joseph because there's not, you know, there's not massive amounts of text in the Bible on it. There's not lots that we can dig into. And so it's in his hiddenness makes him harder. But it's also, I think, one of the things that you talk about in Joy to the World, um, and there's a chapter on St. Joseph, and you talked about how his fatherhood was so real that we sell him short when we call him a foster father. Um, and my all of my children are adopted, and my husband and I don't call them our adopted children. I don't like it when we're called an adoptive parent. Like we are parents. They are our our children. Like our motherhood and fatherhood is real. Our love is real. And if we, who are not saints, can love our children as much as we do and have such a real parent, you know, like profound love for them, and they respond back to us as, you know, we're Mommy and Daddy. How much more does Joseph love Jesus as his own son? And how much more does Jesus love Joseph as his father? And so to be able to dwell and meditate on that relationship and the man who loved Jesus as his own son like that, like it's a beautiful thing to do. But it's so important because it really teaches us something about parenthood.
>> It sure does. Okay. So, since you mentioned this book, Joy to the World, How Christ Coming Changed Everything and Still Does, it's one of my favorites. And I must admit that my favorite chapter in this book is on St. Joseph. And it's entitled Silent Night, Holy Night. But of course, the the word night is spelled K-N-I-G-H-T because that is St. Joseph the silent. He doesn't speak any lines in the Gospels. Uh, perhaps the most wise, you know, the most quotable man doesn't have anything to quote. Uh, but what I enjoyed doing in that chapter, among other things, was to draw out the comparison again between the Old and the New, because you have Matthew's Gospel setting up Jesus to bring about a new Exodus. So, you go back to the Book of Exodus and you recognize that it was prepared for, it was set up by a man named Joseph, the patriarch in Genesis 37, who is the son of Jacob, who's described as righteous or upright. And God sends him a series of dreams, the result of which he takes the holy family of Israel down to Egypt in the time of famine to provide for bread. Fast forward to the New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew, and St. Joseph is featured in chapter 1, and he is Joseph the son of Jacob, and he's also described as righteous. And he too is given a series of dreams, the result of which he takes the holy family down where? To Egypt, of all places, from Bethlehem, the House of Bread, where we find the Bread of Life. Now, for the early Church Fathers, this was not a series of coincidences. These were providential convergences. This was all typology. But it doesn't stop there. As we as we mentioned in Joseph, Keeper of the King, you also can see why Matthew is providing Joseph's royal genealogy, tracing it all the way back to Abraham, but through David until the exile, and then from the exile, the Babylonian captivity, all the way up to the Annunciation. Only in Matthew 1, it's Joseph who was visited by the angel. It is this Annunciation. And you know, when you look at the Holy Family, and you have the composite of Luke's account, which focuses upon the Blessed Virgin, and then you have Matthew's account, which focuses upon St. Joseph, you begin to realize that St. Joseph is in fact more than a foster father, more than a legal father, or one scholar calls him the puditive father. Why? Because we tend to think of fatherhood, you know, strictly in terms of the biological. So when we hear that God is Father, I think we assume that we know what we mean because we've all had fathers. They're males. They have bodies. They have, you know, not only gender and bodies, but a physical part, a generative act with a spouse. And yet, God does not have gender. He does not have a body, at least the first person of the Trinity. Likewise, there's no generative act performed with a wife. And so, you might conclude, well, then God isn't a father. Until you realize, wait a second, no, fatherhood is not reducible to the physical, to the genital, to the things that we share in common with animals. When animals generate, they perpetuate the species, but they don't produce persons who bear the image and likeness of God. You know, God the Father generates the Son, who is the image of God from all eternity. And so, fatherhood must be more spiritual than physical. It's more divine than human. It's it's more theological than it is biological, etc., etc. And so, this is why we have to recognize, you know, that a great saint like St. Josemaria can refer to the Holy Family as what? The earthly Trinity. You know, that doesn't fit, but it does. St. Francis de Sales also spoke in those terms, you know. And so in eternity, you have this divine communion of persons. And then in the fullness of time, you have Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. And I do think that Joseph gets uh short shrift. You know, hopefully no longer. You know, there really is a great revival. I'm sure you know, Father Don Calloway, another neighbor of ours with the Marians, and his Consecration to St. Joseph has done a great job in restoring the the prominence and the power of St. Joseph as a patron not only for dads but moms and families as well. So, uh, I'm going to shift it back to you now and just say, okay, what is your experience as you were thinking about the scriptures, as you were meditating upon, you know, the material that we find about St. Joseph, what did you want to put into Joseph, Keeper of the King?
>> Well, in a way, it's it's typology. You know, but we often think of biblical types. But of course, in a sacramental worldview, you know, the whole world is typological. Like everything is pointing us to God. Like everything is reflecting God in some way is an opportunity for grace because it's an opportunity to draw close.
>> Just pause for a moment and explain it because it seems slightly overstated, but it's not. What do you mean, everything points to God?
>> In this world, God made everything. And like an artist, you can always look at a painting and say, "Oh, that's a Monet. That's a Renoir." Like this whole world says, "Oh, this is God's." Like this points back to God. It has his mark in it. It has some of him in it. And so, you know, in a sacramental worldview, as Catholics, we look and say, "Well, God, something about God came up with the idea of a hippopotamus." Like, like what does that tell us about God? Like the hippopotamus, the mountain, the water, the moon, all of that began as a thought in the mind of God. And so in some way, it tells us something about God. And we learn about the Creator through His creation. Like that's His first word. You know, that's the word that's spoken in the beginning. And so when you start to see the world that way, you realize that every time I'm contemplating something in the created universe, I'm contemplating that something came from the mind of God. And what does this teach me about Him? And this is true, you know, biblically, we look at the types and we say, "Oh, there's a type of, you know, this is a type of Joseph. This is a type of Christ. This type of Mary." But when I look at my husband, I know that to my children, he is a type of the Father. Like my children, every father, like children learn about the Father through their own fathers. And people who struggle with the fatherhood of God often struggle with their own fathers. Not always, but that can become a real stumbling block to understanding. Well, how can the Father God love me when my own father couldn't love me? Like my father was cruel and capricious. How like is that who God is? Um, and so each of us, I mean, we want to, we want, you know, every man should want to be as good of an image of the Father in Heaven as he can, just and merciful and strong and true. Um, and I know that my children are learning about God the Father through the way my husband loves them. Like they're learning about fatherhood. Just like your kids have I've seen you as a father. You know, I there's some things Scott does so so well that my husband and I have talked about, like your jubilee. Yours is like the way that you modeled mercy for your children is so beautiful and such a great type of the Father. And God picked Joseph to be the type of Him. Like He picked Joseph to be to teach Jesus really what fatherhood is because even though Jesus, as this, you know, the divine person, Jesus, there's, you know, there's a knowledge of the Father that can't possibly be taught, there's still the human Jesus.
>> That's right. There's an infant Jesus. There's a child, a pre-adolescent. And so through visible signs on earth, his own human awakening to what he as the second person of the Trinity realizes. And yet he's growing in wisdom and knowledge and stature before man. And so we, I I I think we tend to discount the fact that the human child Jesus had a human father who really bore this profound earthly likeness. Because God is not going to call St. Joseph to be a father figure and to truly, I mean, in Luke 3, you Luke 2 and 3, you know, you really have him being identified by the Blessed Virgin, you know, uh, in the finding of the boy Jesus in the temple, you know, me and your father, not your foster father, your adoptive father, your real father. There really is a an earthly image of God the Father more perfectly in him than in any other dad.
>> Exactly. Yeah. I step back because I I want to underscore this point that that that God writes nature the way we write books. And so, you know, when we see the sun, the moon, the stars, when we see trees, when we see rivers, when we see water, you know, when we see mountains, as you indicated, God is writing the world like we write words so that all of these things become symbols, visible signs on earth of these heavenly realities that we're being prepared for. And you can see it even in the Genesis narrative where Joseph has a dream that involves the sun, the moon, and the stars because, you know, Jacob, his father, has 12 sons, but these other stars are bowing down to him. It's like, aren't we kind of mixing things up, mixing our metaphors? No. It shows that the typology of creation and the typology of salvation history are like warp and woof. That they really represent the fabric of God's purpose being unveiled over time. And it just gets bigger and better as we proceed from the Old to the New. And yet, at the same time, we recognize that God has given us all fathers for one purpose, so that we can come to know Him for who He is. But He's given us all fathers who have flaws, who have failed us. Some grievously, others not so much. But the fact is, no father is going to measure up to God. And yet, when you understand that fatherhood is more spiritual than physical, more of a divine mystery than simply what we share in common with animals, you realize that St. Joseph is probably the most profound image of God the Father. Not in spite of his own consecrated virginity, but precisely because of it. There really is a sense in which priests can look to St. Joseph and understand why are we called fathers? Because well, in the sacramental order, the priest is the ordinary minister of rebirth in baptism, the breadwinner in the Holy Eucharist, discipline and instruction in the confessional, and we could go on and on. As St. Joseph was, so the priests are fathers in the order of grace, supernatural, sacramental dads. And I would say that we've really got to recover that with regard to St. Joseph in order to help men to overcome this macho sense that I've got to either be perfect or pretend act like I am.
>> Well, you know, John Paul II in the Theology of the Body talks about how physical parenthood is actually oriented towards spiritual parenting. Like we often treat spiritual parenthood like it's the consolation. It's what you get if you can't have kids. You know, I would hear that all the time when I was single or when we were struggling with infertility. Well, you can at least be a spiritual mother. It's like, no, it's not. You can at least be a spiritual mother. It's like >> that's the most >> you are called to be a spiritual mother. Everyone is called to be like physical parenthood teaches us about what spiritual parenthood is. Like it's the physical roadmap to understanding what we're all made for. And so when you understand it that way, it changes how you think about St. Joseph. It changes how you think about your own fatherhood. Like you're not just about making a baby and providing the paycheck. Like your real job as a father is spiritual. It is to form your children and to help them grow into, you know, to grow into saints. Like that's the real work of fatherhood that men are called to be engaged in. They don't just get to father the baby and then head off to work and send home the check and that's good enough and not like it is so much more than that. And St. Joseph is the model that I think teaches men that.
>> Wow. I mean, that is so right. That is so profound. You know, I I I think about how it is that God fathers the Son from all eternity, but it's not physical. It's spiritual. Well, wait a minute. What does that mean? Well, we speak of how in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. The Word was God. Well, wait. Is is that the Word the same as the Son? Yeah, because God fathers the Son by speaking the Word, and that Word becomes flesh. And so, when the angel invites St. Joseph to give him his word, to give God the word of consent. There really is a mysterious but real match between what God has done from eternity and what St. Joseph is doing in time, giving consent not to fill out adoption papers, but to be the real father, to be the provider, to be the protector, to teach Jesus His prayers along with the Blessed Virgin Mary, to apprentice Him in the carpenter's shop as well, you know, to do all of the things that dads do, only with a divine Son who has been entrusted to you. Say what? No way. Oh yeah. But God doesn't call Joseph because Joseph was just a self-made man, qualified. No, He qualifies us when He calls us. And so He gave to St. Joseph the grace that He needs, just like He has given that grace to me as a a father, but also to Chris. And so this really is, I think, not only a challenge for men, but also an invitation to relax and to stop trying to make it so that we have to do it all ourselves. You know, uh, I'm also reminded of something else about St. Joseph, and that is long before St. Louis de Montfort, long before True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph is the first to be consecrated to the Blessed Virgin. He exercised this true devotion to her. But it wasn't just a kind of pietistic spirituality where he just put her on a pedestal. No, I mean, they would go to bed together. They would rise together. They would, you know, help out with the chores. They would also work together in teaching their baby, you know, how to walk and talk and how to pray and sing and all of these kinds of things. And and St. Joseph just didn't turn away from her beauty. She was beautiful in a modest way, but in a deep and profound way. And so he would look upon, he would look into her eyes, he would look upon her hair, he would see her body, he would recognize that she is beautiful as a woman is beautiful. And he was chaste. And that doesn't in any way diminish his appreciation for her beauty. If anything, it purifies it and makes it more profound and powerful. It's like, again, wait, that seems counterintuitive, but it is everything that goes into the graces that St. Joseph received. In that the angel also is celebrating when he says, "St. Joseph, son of David." Oh, I meant son of Jacob. No, you have a you have a dynastic legacy. And you know, David's son was the first to be called the Son of God back in Saul. "I will be his father, he will be my son." And so, Joseph, son of David, this shows us that he's not only participating in the raising of the Son of God as the son of Mary, but also as the son of Joseph. And I do believe that Catholic theology is lagging behind, especially in America. You go to Spain, you go to Italy, and you'll find that there were works done a century, two centuries ago in a branch or a discipline of theology called Josephology. Well, we know Mariology, but no, there is a finally developed Josephology, too, that we're still just discovering.
>> Well, I think we sell St. Joseph short so often. It's hard to get our heads around the fact that a human man could be a true father in the most important sense to God. It's hard to get our heads around the fact that a man could be so chaste that he could live as man and wife, love his wife, a beautiful wife, and not like and not violate chastity, right? And so we come up with all these theories about St. Joseph to sell him short. We call him the foster father. Like he's not really the father. Or, you know, we we do old Joseph instead of young Joseph. And we made we made a very conscious decision. We are young Joseph people because we believe Joseph is perfectly capable of being chaste and is a model of chastity for all men in that. Um, and so, yeah, I think there is we want to make Joseph small because it is so hard to wrap our head around God doing something as glorious as making a human person the image of the Father in the home of God and being the spouse of the Immaculate Conception. But like, what? God is God. He's so much bigger than that. He can do that. And I feel like though we're talking about all these big theological concepts, and if I were watching this podcast, I'd be like, that's very interesting. How on earth is that a book for children?
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
>> Like, does my child need to have a PhD in theology at age five to read this? And I think that's the beautiful thing about typology is it is it's so practical and concrete and it's very easy for a child to grasp these concepts when they're put simply. A helps us understand B. B helps us understand A. They work together. And, you know, so through images and words, we're able to get these these really big ideas about St. Joseph, like Josephology, into something that my six-year-old, you know, can understand.
>> Yeah. And that's the important thing. God God wants us all to understand it. He doesn't want you to just have to have a PhD in theology in order to be able to understand the Holy Family or how He works in history. God has has given us concepts that are simple enough for a child to understand.
>> You know, I keep doubling back to points that you make because like me, you speak quickly, you know, and so these points might just be, you know, uh water over the dam. Uh, but the idea that we have a young Joseph. And why do people normally associate Joseph with an old man? Because only old men can be chaste, you know? But now, of course, St. Joseph may well have been a young man who probably accompanied her down to Jerusalem, you know, and the Visitation and all of that. But but regardless, I think what we have to emphasize is that Joseph was not called upon to repress his own sexuality as a male, but to express it in a way that combines chastity with marital fidelity and also the purity of heart. So that his own son, truly Jesus, the Son of Mary, the Son of Joseph, is redeeming Joseph. And the Blessed Virgin Mary has a role that doesn't add it into Christ, that doesn't subtract anything from Christ, but she also is the instrument of God whereby Joseph becomes this man who is fully redeemed and thus able to appreciate her beauty. He's attracted to her profoundly by her beauty. And it's like, okay, but wait, doesn't that no, overcoming the dominion of concupiscence is precisely the fruit that is born by the marriage of Joseph and Mary, as well as by raising the Savior of the world, who's also the Savior of St. Joseph. And it's like, okay, this just keeps getting more cool. But it's not like so abstract or profound that you need a degree in theology, though it really is accessible and not just to our viewers, but to their kids, to my grandkids. I have read this to my own grandkids and I found that they were just like, whoa, mesmerized. And the poetry helped. Thank you many, many times for that. But the message too. And, you know, and there's one other element that I want to underscore because, you know, when it comes to the angel approaching Joseph, the assumption that most people have, at least I did as a Protestant, is that the angel has to talk Joseph into like not deciding to divorce her because of his suspicion. She must have been playing around. You know, you are allowed to have that view. But the actual narrative of Matthew does not lend itself because the angel doesn't say, Joseph, you know, son of Jacob, don't be so suspicious. You ought to know better that that gal is beyond reproach. No, he says, Joseph, son of David. Again, she has a dignity because she is the Mother of God. But so do you. And so there is a suspicion theory that is dominant among most biblical scholars, including some Catholics. But there's another theory that has a much more ancient pedigree, and that is the reverence theory. And you well know it because you have written it into the very fabric of the the poetry of Joseph, Keeper of the King. And if I can just read from a section, I want to underscore the fact that the angel doesn't say, "Joseph, son of David, don't be so suspicious." It is, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid." Because it's the fear of reverence. My bride to whom I'm betrothed is with child of the Holy Spirit. Well, then I know who is going to be disqualified. That is me. Not so fast. Do not be afraid. And so often when God confronts a man like Moses, for example, or the prophet Isaiah, or even Peter in Luke chapter 5, with this divine calling for which we are no match, we're not called because we're qualified. We end up getting the graces that qualify us because He's calling us. But the first response of Moses is like, "No, Isaiah, I'm a man of unclean lips." And the angel doesn't say, "Oh, come on, Isaiah. Get over yourself." And likewise, the angel is not discounting the fact that Joseph feels unworthy out of his own humble reverence for the mystery that his betrothed is going to bear a child through the Holy Spirit. Well, then really counts me out unless it doesn't, you know. And so the reverence, and I should point to the fact that in the book Joy to the World, but also in the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, we summarize all of the interpretive options, but we clearly privilege the reverence theory and just show that it actually fits not only the tradition of the Church. It just fits a close reading of the narrative in Matthew that the angel is confirming what Joseph had already known, and that is, yes, she is with child of the Holy Spirit, but you are called by the Spirit to give consent to the marriage, to give Him a name. Even though Joseph would realize, well, wait a minute, once I name the child Jesus as the angel instructed me, then in every level of Jewish law and custom, I am the father, whether I feel qualified or not. And and to me, I mean, let me just pick up in the middle of this book, the the section that I love the most. Now Joseph too would face a choice to run in fear or to rejoice. Now Joseph too must have a voice in what his life would hold. Would he say yes and raise God's Son, the hope for King, the promised One? Would he say yes or would he run away from this great gift? He didn't know. Fear filled his heart. For who was he to play this part? He didn't know. Should he depart, unworthy as he was? But while he slept, the angel came and softly whispered Joseph's name. And while he slept, a spirit, a flame, set his heart to rest. Fear not, said he. This is God's plan. Oh, David's Son, you are the man. Fear not, said he. Raise Him you can, and love Him as your own. It's like, oh, does it get any better than that? You know, I had to stop. I I had 10 grandkids surrounding my Papa chair and I was reading this and I paused and Kimberly looked at me. She could see what was welling up, you know, within me. To me, this is the beauty of the narrative. But even more, this is the power of St. Joseph, the saint back then and there, but also here and now. So like uh, what do I say? Well, I suppose I should say 10,000 thanks for working on this with me, but also really, you know, taking the uh the challenge up and and and writing it into the most beautiful poetic form.
>> Oh, well, it is. These books are very hard to write because taking complex theology and making it accessible to adults is not the simplest thing. As you know, doing that with children, a little bit harder. Making it all rhyme and have the right meter, it's complicated. It takes a while. I think I spent as much time on this book as we did on like, Hope, the writing of Hope to Die. Like it took, I was like, let me write 50,000 words that aren't in verse, and that'll be easier. Um, but it, you know, it's it's such a joy to be able to know that kids are getting these concepts at such a young age, and then they get built on and they get built on until it's the most natural thing in the world for them to pick up the Bible and understand what, how the signs are pointing forwards and backwards, and they're able to read it as native speakers, like typology and how the Church reads the scriptures become their native language. When we start this early with rhyme. And so it is such a great privilege to get to take your your work and break it down for my small children and other people's small children.
>> Well, you know, speaking back to the reverence theory, you know who does the reverence theory really well?
>> Have you ever seen the movie The Star, the cartoon The Star about the Nativity? You should watch it.
>> I will.
>> They do the reverence theory very well. Partly because you you don't want to have Joseph accusing Mary of adultery in a children's show, but I think there's a natural childlike understanding of like, of course, Joseph would be afraid. Like that's a natural, it's very easy to explain that concept to children. I mean, you look at Luke 5, and after the great haul of fish, you would expect Simon Peter to drop to his knees and beg Jesus to sign a contract, you know, because we can finance your public ministry if we can bring in fish like this. Instead, he dropped to his knees and said, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man." And and that's if that's true for St. Peter, I would say it's even truer for St. Joseph, you know. And another one who does a great job is St. Bernard of Clairvaux, as well as St. Thomas Aquinas. Both of these great saints and Doctors of the Church are proponents of the reverence theory. And what we do in the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, you know, we have to squeeze it into the footnotes, but we just show that it exhibits greater explanatory power when it comes to making sense out of the narrative in Matthew 1. And so it doesn't just emerge as some pietistic ecclesiastical reading that is alien to the Gospel. No, it really does make more sense out of why does the angel, you know, mess up and say Joseph, son of David? Why does he say do not fear? Because it really is a reverential response that Joseph has. And then it is an obedient response of total trust in the Lord. And I think this is what, you know, men and women need to learn from. Uh, and I think they have to to get over all of these superficial understandings of of Joseph.
>> Yeah. And hopefully this will help. We're always not just writing for the kids, we're writing for the parents, too.
>> No. Especially, you know, parents are, as John Paul said, the first evangelizers of children. You know, and I would say grandparents are the second evangelizers. But parents are also the catechists, the primary catechists for the kids. And the family is a kind of ecclesia domestica, a domestic church. But it's an extended family, it's not closed in on itself. And so I want to invite parents, but also godparents, as well as grandparents, to get hold of Joseph, Keeper of the King, you know, uh, not only to read during the feast of St. Joseph, but also throughout the year. Uh, Mary, Mother of God, The Supper of the Lamb, Lord Have Mercy. And I hope that we get to collaborate on on more books. But I just have to say once again, many thanks for the partnership, for the collaboration. You know, I spent a chapter on St. Joseph, Silent Night, Holy Night, going through the arguments for the suspicion theory and then the reverence theory and all of the other things too, you know, and then you distill it in like five pages of poetry, and the rhyme makes it stick in the minds and the hearts of the kids as well as the parents and the grandkids, as well as the grandparents. So, bless you, Emily Stimson Chapman, and thank you for being my guest on this episode of The Road to Emmaus. Any closing thoughts that you have?
>> No, I'm just I'm excited for these books. It's so funny. I never thought that I would end up, you know, writing all these children's books, but >> it's been a fun, a fun development. And, you know, who knew what you were getting yourself into when you when I walked into your class all those years ago? And how do you still remember what I wrote my paper about? I saved the paper. I asked you permission to copy it. It was in my files. It still is, I suspect, especially because uh you understood Matthias Joseph Scheeben and K.B.Y. and others on the relationship between Mary and the Holy Spirit. And that's one of my favorite topics, even though it is one of the most uh challenging.
>> You have a mind like a steel trap. It is. I like, your memory blows my mind.
>> Yeah. Well, thank you all for joining us on this episode of The Road to Emmaus. And I just want to say a blessed feast of St. Joseph, uh, in time for March 19th. But also beyond that, I encourage, I invite all of you as sons and daughters of the Most High to get to know St. Joseph as a true spiritual father in the family of God and to draw close to the Holy Family year-round. Until next time, may the Lord richly bless you.