CatholicSaints.Info » Blog Archive » Saints of the Day – Joseph, Husband of Mary

1st century; declared patron of the Universal Church by Pope Pius IX in 1870, patron of workers by Pope Benedict XV, patron of social justice by Pope Pius XI; name added to the canon of the Mass by John XIII in 1962; second feast at Saint Joseph the Worker on May 1.

“How can a truly virtuous man fail in anything? In what situation will he not be powerful; in what state of poverty will he not be rich; in what obscurity will he not be brilliant; in what inaction will he not be industrious; in what infirmity will he not be vigorous; in what weakness will he not be strong; in what solitude will he not be accompanied? for he will have for company the hope of a happy eternity; for clothing, he will have the grace of the Most High; for ornament, the promises of a halo of glory!

“Let us recollect that the saints were not of a more excellent nature than ours, but were more orderly and regular: that they were not exempt from sins, but that they took pains to correct their faults.”

– Saint Ambrose in De Joseph

All that is known about Joseph is found in the Gospels (primarily Matthew 1-2, but also in Luke 1-2). Matthew broadly represents Joseph’s viewpoint, while the Infancy narratives in Luke seem to come from Mary’s.

Descended from the royal line of David, Saint Joseph was the husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who defended her good name, and foster father and protector of the God Who made him, yet Who wished to be known throughout His life as the son of Joseph.

He saw to Jesus’s education and taught him his trade of carpentry or building. Joseph’s disappointment upon learning of Mary’s pregnancy was said to be assuaged by an angelic vision, and he was the recipient of two more visions: one telling him to seek refuge in Egypt to escape Herod’s persecution, and the second, to return to Palestine.

Saint Joseph bore the responsibilities of a father perfectly. A dream told him that King Herod planned to kill the infant Jesus. Joseph took Mary and Jesus away by night to Egypt and thus saved the life of the Savior. He kept the child hidden from Herod’s son in case he, too, would have harmed Jesus.

Joseph was with Mary in the stable at Bethlehem when Jesus was born. He was looking after the mother and child when the shepherds and the Magi came to worship him. He took Mary and Jesus to Jerusalem to present him to God in the Temple. He shared Mary’s anxieties for her son when Jesus was presumed lost, after their visit to the Temple when he was 12.

After this no more is heard of Joseph in the New Testament except in Luke 4:22, where he is named as the father of Jesus. He is not mentioned as being present at the crucifixion, a fact that persuaded many artists to portray him as an old man who had presumably died by the time Jesus was in his early thirties.

The few Biblical particulars give an impression of a just, kind, dignified and level-headed man, prompt in action but self-effacing. The apocryphal Protoevangelium of James holds that he was an old man when Jesus was born, but this appears unlikely when one considers the fact that he reared Jesus and fulfilled the family duties.

Special veneration to Joseph began in the East, where the apocryphal History of Joseph the Carpenter enjoyed great popularity in the fifth to seventh centuries. It led to devotion from the 17th century to Joseph by all those desiring a happy death because the History tells that Joseph was afraid of death and filled with self-reproach, but was comforted by the words of Mary and Jesus, who promised protection and life to all who do good in the name of Joseph.

Martyrology entries in the West date from the 8th century (Rheinau) and slightly later Irish martyrologies. The 9th-century Irish metrical hymn Félire of Saint Aengus mentions a commemoration, but it was not until the 15th century that veneration of Saint Joseph became widespread in the West, when his feast was introduced into the Roman Calendar in 1479.

Carmelite breviaries from 1480 commemorate his feast, as does the Roman breviary of 1482 and the Roman Missal of 1505.

The notion of Joseph as the foster-father of Jesus fired the imagination of the medieval Church. Saint John Chrysostom pointed to the anxieties of Joseph as a pattern of the trials of all Christians – relieved as they are by God’s intervention. Saints Vincent Ferrer (d. 1419), Bridget of Sweden (d. 1373), and Bernardino of Siena (d. 1444) all propagated his devotion, partially in reaction against Medieval mystery plays, in which he is the channel for comic relief.

In the 15th century the French churchman Jean Gerson wrote twelve poems in his honor. Saint Teresa of Ávila chose him as the practical saint who should be patron of the Discalced Carmelite friars and nuns [see her paean, Go to Joseph]. Pope Gregory XV made his feast a day of obligation, but this is not widely observed today. In Quanquam pluries (1889), Pope Leo XIII declared Joseph a model for fathers of families and confirmed that his sanctity was second only the that of the Blessed Virgin. In 1989, Pope John Paul II issued Redemptoris custos (Guardian of the Redeemer) (Attwater, Attwater2, Benedictines, Bentley, Delaney, Encyclopedia, Farmer, Filas, Rondet, White).

Saint Joseph is generally pictured as an elderly man holding a flowering rod with the Christ Child in his arms or led my his hand (this emblem is also associated with Saint Joseph of Arimathea). According to an ancient legend, Mary and the other virgins of the Temple were commanded to return to their homes and marry. When the Blessed Virgin refused, the elders prayed for guidance and a voice from the sanctuary instructed them to call together the unwed males of the House of David. In accordance with the voice, the priest Zacharius instructed the gathered males to leave their staffs on the altar of the temple overnight. Nothing happened. So Zacharius next included those of the widowers, including Joseph.

When Joseph’s rod was found the next morning, in flower (“the flower of the rod of Jesse”), he was told to take the Blessed Virgin to wife and keep her for the Lord (Appleton, Tabor). Many times the flowering rod is replaced by a stalk of lilies (Appleton).

At times he may be shown (1) with the Christ Child, two doves in a cage, and a lily; (2) with the Christ Child and a lily; (3) in scenes with the Holy Family; (4) with carpenter’s tools; (5) as the angel appears to him in a dream; (6) working in a carpenter’s shop with the boy Jesus near him; or (7) dying, supported by Christ and the Virgin (Roeder).

As head of the Holy Family, Saint Joseph is the patron of the Universal Church, of fathers, of opposition to atheistic Communism (he was a worker), of workers, doubters (he married Mary despite her pregnancy), of a happy death (he is said to have died before Jesus and Mary), Austria, Bohemia, Canada, Mexico, Belgium, Peru, Russia, South Vietnam, missions to the Chinese (Sandoval, White), bursers, procurators (Farmer), as well as of carpenters, confectioners (Naples), the dying, engineers, the family, married couples, house-hunters, pioneers, and travellers (Roeder). He is invoked when in doubt, hesitation or when looking for a house (Roeder).