#betrothal
❤️the thing with feathers
G, 43k, wangxian, Part 1ofHope
Summary:A night hunt gone wrong leaves Wei Wuxian facing life without a husband and son. He refuses. Using an experimental array, he attempts temporal transmigration, but it goes wrong. He sends himself back to the age of ten, and the strain on his young body and mind requires another desperate use of resentful energy… which also goes wrong. A different sort of time travel fic.
My comments: Oh, wow, I loved this so much! I’m really looking forward to more in the series, because I could happily drown myself in 50k more words of it.
Wwx sends himself back in time, but this story is different, in that once he enters his 10-year-old self (which is pretty traumatic) he ends up with amnesia, so really IS just a child. The chain of events this sets off is fabulous. While he’s in a coma and things are touch-and-go, Madam Yu has an opportunity to examine her poor treatment of this boy in the past and set about making some changes. Because he’s crying out for “Lan Zhan”, the Lans are invited to try to clear away the resentful energy (they think it was cast at him as a curse in an attack), and Lan Qiren brings both his nephews.
The story covers about a season, and POV jumps around, which is wonderful, because everyone is GROWING. They are changing, their worlds are different, and they’re being exposed to different people and different ideas. Madam Yu and Lan Qiren go through perhaps the biggest development arcs, but seriously, EVERYONE is affected. (And none of this is done with a heavy hand, either: the focus is on the story, and the growth is all organic.)
Little Lan Wangji opens up like he never has before, Jiang Yanli starts to learn to be a healer and LQR teachers her musical cultivation… the ripple effect of change is simply fascinating. The Lans become less rigid, and the Jiangs more loving. And young wwx is the nexus and the catalyst. Especially when he ‘remembers’ a few things that make them believe he’s become precognitive.
time travel, fix it, child wei wuxian, madam yu is good, POV multiple, child lan wangji, hurt wei wuxian, sick wei wuxian, angst, amnesia, jiang family feels, caretaking, illness recovery, character growth, (all of them - they are growing and becoming better people), social change, adoption, lan qiren is good, sharing a bed, nightmares, emotional hurt/comfort, hurt/comfort, doting lan wangji, street orphans, gege jiang cheng, didi wei wuxian, jiang wuxian, betrothal, arranged marriage, grief, sect politics, protective madam yu, protective lan wangji, protective everyone, favorite, @rosethornewrites
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HOMILY for the Solemnity of Saint Joseph
2 Samuel 7:4-5, 12-14, 16; Psalm 88; Romans 4:13, 16-18, 22; Matt 1:16, 18-21, 24
The happy but rare celebration of a Betrothal, between Laura and Danny, on this festal day of St Joseph, gives us a chance to pause and comment on these words of the Gospel: “His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph; but before they came to live together she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.” This scene, beautifully depicted in the stained glass windows around our Altar of St Joseph, and this sentence from St Matthew’s Gospel tells us what a Jewish betrothal entails: firstly, there is a union, a commitment, a pledge between a couple, and that secondly, this couple, although promised to one another in a bond as solemn as marriage, do not yet live together and therefore do not yet enjoy marital relations.
In this sense, therefore, the Jewish Encyclopædia describes a betrothal, kiddushin as a rite that establishes the marriage bond albeit one that is incomplete because the bride does not yet live in the home of her husband. The Jewish custom was to allow a twelve month period between the betrothal and the marriage ceremony. Why? So as to allow the husband time to prepare the marital home, and for the local community, the family and the whole village, to prepare the necessary goods and foods for the marriage feast. It is during this preparation period, therefore, during these twelve months that the Blessed Virgin Mary conceives by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit.
St Joseph, therefore, when he hears the angel’s message in a dream, understands that God is doing something wonderful and new through his wife. For through Mary, in the person of Jesus Christ, God has betrothed our humanity. There is a fittingness to this in God’s plan of salvation because, through his Incarnation, God now enters our time and space; human history is changed so that, through grace, we all now live in a time of betrothal as we, the Baptised, must now all prepare for the marriage feast of heaven. Indeed this Lenten period with its characteristic penances in preparation for Easter focusses our mind, as Christians, on the necessary good works and prayer and penance we must do throughout our lives, from the moment of our Baptismal betrothal, in order to prepare for the Paschal nuptial feast of heaven. But we don’t just do this for ourselves – as a priestly people we do this for the good of the world, for the rest of God’s created order.
The feast of St Joseph today, therefore, calls to mind once more the pledge that God has made to humanity. At a time when people might feel uncertain and doubtful, or when many might wonder if God has abandoned them, or they perhaps feel bereft of his presence, it is good to be reminded that God has betrothed himself to Man. And as the word ‘betroth’ indicates, coming as it does from the Old English word triewð, God pledges himself to us, he makes a covenant with us, and he does so in faithfulness, fidelity, loyalty, truthfulness. Hence St Paul says: even “if we are faithless, [God] remains faithful – for he cannot deny himself.” (2 Tim 2:13) Through the Incarnation, God the Second Person of the Holy Trinity has forever united himself to our humanity, and so he cannot deny himself, and he is forever faith, ever present, always Emmanuel, God-with-us.
St Joseph, through his faith and his obedience, through his docility to the word of God revealed by angels, exhibits, therefore, this righteous trust in God’s ever-present help. Despite the dangers and difficulties he faced, he kept faith with God because he believed in the faithfulness of God, a God who has first betrothed himself to us with a love beyond all telling. And so today we are encouraged in faith, to remember the fidelity of God, and to trust in his mercies and steadfast love, and so to heed his word with serenity, as St Joseph does. As always, we are being challenged to keep faith with God, to trust in his promises even in moments when things seem humanly impossible.
St Joseph, again, shows us the way forward in this respect. The Gospel passage we hear today contains a clue, but only if we pay attention to the Greek text! When Joseph learns of the pregnancy of Mary, he, being a just and righteous man, decides to spare her undue publicity. The word St Matthew uses to describe St Joseph’s course of action is apoluo.Now, this word could mean ‘divorce’ as it’s been translated in the lectionary somewhat unfortunately. But the word can also mean to ‘distance oneself from’, ‘conceal’ or ‘hide’. Now, as Joseph trusts in God’s Word, and as he also believes in the goodness of his wife Mary, who scholars now realise had in fact dedicated herself to God in consecrated virginity from her childhood, then St Joseph could not have wanted to divorce his wife. For that would be as good as abandoning her! Rather, this just man of faith, knowing well the Scriptures, was chosen by God to be the chaste husband of Mary to protect her, to love her, and indeed to guard her chaste modesty and virginity. Thus St Thomas Aquinas says that “Joseph wanted to give the Virgin her liberty, not because he suspected her of adultery, but [because] out of respect for her sanctity he feared to live together with her”. Just as St Peter would ask the Lord Jesus to depart from him because he was a sinful man, so Joseph wants to distance himself from Mary, the Mother of God, because he feels himself unworthy of her! Thus St Bridget of Sweden revealed in one of her mystical revelations that “Joseph would not suspect evil but remembered the words of the prophet who foretold that the Son of God would be born of a virgin, [but] he reputed himself unworthy to serve such a mother, until the angel in a dream commanded him not to fear to minister to [Our Lady] with charity.” Joseph’s response, therefore, is one of tremendous faith in God, and in his promises, which are being fulfilled through his betrothed, the Virgin Mary.
So, Laura and Danny, in your days together from henceforth, and in your stewardship of the household of faith and love that God establishes today between you, look to St Joseph’s example: Remain steadfast in faith, protect and cherish the virtues of each other, and be attentive and prudently responsive to the Word of God. St Joseph, pray for us: that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ!
