by Rev. Fr. V.V. Paulose

"Revelation to Joseph the Carpenter" (Matthew: 1:18-25)

"An angel of the Lord came to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, Don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife." (Matt: 1:20)

Do you have any shattered dreams?

Dream is the base and inspiration for action. Life becomes lifeless without dreams and revelations. Everyone should have a dream in his/her life. In the Old Testament all our Patriarchs like Joseph, Jacob, Daniel had the dreams and visions and they acted for the achievement of it and they fulfilled their dreams. In the New Testament, the growth and development of Christianity, is fully rooted in dreams, and its actions, being taken by the disciples of Jesus like Paul, Jacob, Stephen, Peter, and Thomas

Joseph, the upright, took ridicule and shame. He was ready to face the excommunication and marginalization from his relatives, friends and the church to heed and implement the dreams he had. "Joseph took Mary as his wife." (Matt: 1:24). Mary and child were protected and insulated by Joseph from the predators and wrong finders. So Joseph, the carpenter, was called as the father of Jesus. And the Christian world respects and venerates him as a saint. The people want to emulate his upright character and saga of his journey to fulfill the dreams he had.

Dreams won’t withdraw by its own without fulfilling the goal. Generations and generations of slaves in Africa and other continents had the dreams of freedom from slavery that was first fulfilled in UK through the work of people like William Wilberforce and gradually from all over the world. Marin Luther King "Had a dream" of equality and rule of an African American in USA. It was fulfilled when Barack Obama became the President of USA in 2008.

The young bright Susan had a dream and a wish to become a doctor. But she has landed in a marriage with a degree in biology. The couple got a son who studied well and got admission in a medical college. Susan didn’t rest or lost her dream to become a doctor. She also prepared for the medical entrance test with her son and got admission in the same medical college where her son got it. Both, the son and mother studied in the same medical college and both passed with high marks. Now she is practicing as a gynecologist fulfilling her dream to become a doctor. Her son is working in Canada as a reputed cardiac surgeon.

So don’t put our dreams and wishes in cold storage or in our closets; instead take it outside, warm it, dust it and keep it in the boiling point. Our ultimate dream is to resurrect and to live in the ecstasy of heaven.

Nasruddin was fast asleep at 9 in the morning. His wife woke him up from his sleep. "The sun has risen in the sky," she said, "the birds are singing in the trees and your breakfast is getting cold." "Breakfast be damned. I was about to sign a contract worth a million grams of gold," he said. He closed his eyes and tried to recapture his shattered dream of gold. In the dream, when interrupted, he was cheating in that contract and his business partner was a tyrant. If, on recapturing the dream, he stops his cheating, he will become a saint. If he struggles to free the people from the oppression of the tyrant, he will become a freedom fighter. If, in the middle of it all, he suddenly realizes he is dreaming, he will become awakened. Enlightened.