Jacqueline Kelly –
Saint Joseph is considered to be “the most hidden of the saints”. Nazareth, Jerusalem and Bethlehem were the three scenes in which Saint Joseph’s life played a prominent part. He was a descendant of King David and King Solomon. [Matthew 12:42] and from whose family the Redeemer was to descend [Romans 9:5].
According to the Catholic Encyclopaedia, the Apocryphal date for Joseph’s birth is 90 B.C. in Bethlehem and the Apocryphal date of his death is 18 A.D. in Nazareth. Joseph was named after the Biblical Patriarch Joseph, son of Jacob. The etymological meaning could be “May God add unto [me] you”.
Saint Joseph was a carpenter, and he had nothing to offer our Saviour but his calloused hands a heart full of devotion and love and instead of pomp of the world, poverty and obscurity. Joseph is the Patron Saint of the Dying because, assuming he died before Jesus’ public life, he died with Jesus and Mary close to him, the way we all would like to leave this earth.
When the angel first addressed Saint Joseph as “Son of David” [Matthew 1:20], a royal title used also for Jesus, the great promise made to the family of David was fulfilled in and through Saint Joseph. He was the head of the Holy family, the legal father of our Saviour and the Spouse of the Mother of God; and like Abraham, Joseph was a man of faith and obedience; like Jacob, a man of patience; like Joseph of Egypt, a man of purity; like David, a man according to God’s own heart; like Solomon, a man of wisdom. In the New Testament, too, his position is unique and a “just man” [Matthew 1:19]. Only to Mary was he second in virtue and holiness. Saint Joseph was “the man according to God’s own heart”, “His right-hand man”. [Psalm 79:18] and it is with confidence that he looked to the guiding hand of Providence [Psalm 118:166].
Scripture merely says that Joseph was the husband of Mary of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ [Matthew 1:16]; that he was told by the Angel to take unto himself Mary his wife [Matthew 1:20]; that he was espoused to the Virgin Mary before the angel delivered his heavenly message to her [Luke 1:27]. According to Jewish law and custom the matrimonial contract was essentially sealed with the espousals.
And so, Joseph set out for Bethlehem with Mary because she too as heiress had to be enrolled as there went forth throughout the land a decree of the Roman Emperor Augustus that all the subjected kingdoms, which included the Jewish provinces, should be enrolled together with their inhabitants. It was his duty to support Mary in her services to the Child Jesus.
After the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, Saint Joseph returned with Mary and the Divine Child to Nazareth [Luke 1:39]. That night, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and brought him, the following message: “Arise, take the child and the mother, and go to Egypt and be there until I shall tell thee. Behold, Herod seeks to destroy the child.” Every word of it entailed sacrifice and hardship. The life of exile in Egypt, as may be imagined, was one of toil and suffering. Joseph plied the carpenter’s trade, while Mary spun and did needlework. He waited in Egypt without question until the angel told him it was safe to go back [Matthew 2:13-23] His one concern was for the safety of the child entrusted to him. Saint Joseph had really intended to take up his permanent abode at Bethlehem. But the angel advised him to go to Nazareth.
Nazareth became the pleasant home and garden spot of Christ’s youth, and Joseph was the protector and guardian of this Flower of Paradise.
When Jesus stayed in the Temple at the age of 12, Joseph [along with Mary] searched with great anxiety for three days for him. [Luke 2:48] We also know that Joseph treated Jesus as his own son for over and over the people of Nazareth say of Jesus, “Is this not the son of Joseph?’ [Luke 4:22] Joseph revered God so much. He followed God’s commands in handling the situation with Mary and going to Jerusalem to have Jesus circumcised and Mary purified after Jesus’ birth. Holy Scripture makes particular mention of the fact that the parents of Jesus every year journeyed to Jerusalem for the celebration of the Pasch. [Luke 2:42]
Spiritual leaders are fond of calling Saint Joseph the Shadow of the Heavenly Father. He is the image of the Heavenly Father as regards authority. Saint Joseph is a sublime, venerable and amiable reflection of the Eternal Father. He is the model of the hidden and interior life as he is called the most obscure among the saints.
In his encyclical on Saint Joseph, Pope Leo XIII described Saint Joseph as “the model and protector of virginal integrity”. The Church’s constant tradition holds that Joseph lived a life of consecrated chastity.
The earliest records of a formal devotional following for Saint Joseph date to the year 800 and references to him as nutritor Domini [educator/guardian of the Lord began to appear in the 9th century and continued growing to the 14th century. St. Thomas Aquinas discussed the necessity of the presence of St. Joseph in the plan of the Incarnation.
In the 15th century, major steps were taken by St. Bernadine of Siena, Pierre d’Ailly and Jean Gerson. And Gerson wrote Consideration sur Saint Joseph and preached sermons on Saint Joseph at the Council of Constance. In 1889, Pope Leo XIII issued the encyclical Quamquam pluries in which he urged Catholics to pray to St. Joseph, as the Patron of the Church in view of the challenges facing the Church.
Josephology, namely, the theological study of St. Joseph, is one of the most recent theological disciplines. In 1989, on the occasion of the centenary of Quamquam pluries Pope John Paul II issued Redemptoris Custos [Guardian of the Redeemer], which presented St. Joseph’s role in the plan of redemption, as part of the ‘redemption documents’ issued by John Paul II such as Redemptoris Mater to which it refers.
Together with the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Child Jesus, Joseph is one of the three members of the Holy family. The formal veneration of the Holy family began in the 17th century by Franҫois de Laval. Saint Joseph a humble man was highly exalted by God and honoured by the Catholic Church and imitated by all the faithful.
We celebrate two feast days in honour of Joseph: March 19, for Joseph, husband of Mary and May 1, for Joseph, the worker. Pope Sixtus IV [1471-1484] was the first Pope to introduce the Feast of Saint Joseph in Rome in1479. It then became obligatory with Pope Gregory XV in 1621. Whenever the Church faced some critical moments in her history, the Popes immediately sought the intercession of Saint Joseph. In 1870, Pope Pius IX declared Saint Joseph the Patron of the Universal Church and Pope Saint John XXIII inserted his name into the Roman Canon of Holy Mass in 1962. Pope Francis dedicated a year to Saint Joseph.
Earlier, in 1889, Pope Leo XIII had proposed St. Joseph as a model particularly for “proletarians, workers, and the underprivileged”. Pope Benedict XV placed before workers “in a particular manner the example of St. Joseph, that they may follow him as their special guide and may honour him as their heavenly Patron”.
And Pope Pius XI chose the workman of Nazareth as Patron in the struggle against atheistic communism: “To hasten the advent of the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ, so ardently desired by all, we place the vast campaign of the Church against world communism under the standard of St. Joseph her mighty Protector. He belonged to the working class, and he bore the burdens of poverty for himself and the Holy family….In a life of faithful performance of everyday duties, he left an example for all those who must gain bread by the toil of their hands”.
It was, finally, Pope Pius XII in 1955 who gave concrete expression to the special relationship between St. Joseph and the working class by proclaiming the feast of St. Joseph the Worker, and fixing it on May 1, [Labour Day].
The Pope assured his audience at the Catholic Association of Italian Workers and the “working people of the entire world” in St. Peter’s Square: “You have at your side a Shepherd, a defender and a Father.”
“Our intention in doing so is to bring all men to recognize the dignity of labour. It is our hope, that this dignity may supply the motive for the formation of a social order and a body of law founded on the equitable distribution of rights and duties …. We are certain that you are indeed pleased, for the humble working man of Nazareth not only personifies before God and the Church the dignity of those who work with their hands, but he is also the constant guardian of yourselves and your families”.
The litany of Saint Joseph was composed expounding his noble life and virtues as a model to husbands, fathers, the afflicted, expectant mothers, travellers, immigrants, house sellers and buyers, craftsmen, engineers and working people in general.
Holy Mother Church directs Christian workers to look up to St. Joseph their Patron as model and example of Christian workmanship. As St. Bernard of Clairvaux says, “Imagine his worth from his very name, which means, ‘increase’!” Work per se was never meant to be a punishment; rather, it formed the plan of God. And, so, whether we make a chair or build a Cathedral, we are called upon to bear fruit with our hands, our hearts and minds for the ultimate purpose, viz., the building up of the Body of Christ.
