Come, Hidden Father

The lines that resound in my mind in the small amount of Gnostic liturgy that I have the pleasure of partaking of tend to lean in tone well towards the androgyny and/or supplication of the feminine, as is well evidenced by the two Acts Of Thomas invocations in the previous posts.

I, myself, pay a lot of creedence to the idea that Silence as Wisdom has feminine characteristics and overtones.

However, to throw some new light over my old shadows, there's an excellent article in Slate, published for Christmas, calling for the re-imaging of the role of St Joseph in the orthodox Christian drama.

The Hidden Man of Christmas

"Though most of Joseph's life goes unmentioned in the Gospels, he carried out an astonishingly important task: raising the son of God. For the first years of Jesus' life, and perhaps into young adulthood, he would have learned much of what he knew about the Jewish faith from his mother and his foster father. Perhaps the practices Jesus learned alongside Joseph in the carpentry shop—patience, hard work, creativity—were put to good use in his later ministry. Joseph represents the holiness of the "hidden life," doing meaningful things without fanfare."

"So the next time you're singing "Silent Night" and get to the part about the "Mother and child," don't forget about the fellow in the back, the guy who cared for them for the rest of his life, silently."

Delighted smile. I stand enlightened!!