19 March (last Saturday) was the feast of the solemnity of the patriarch and patron saint of the Catholic Church, Saint Joseph. For Pope John Paul II, Saint Joseph was the “husband of the Blessed Virgin, protector of the Incarnate Word, a man of daily work, steward of the great mystery of salvation”.
A detailed description of the carpenter of Nazareth’s personality is found in the classic encyclical ‘On devotion to Saint Joseph’, Quamquam Pluries, of Pope Leo XIII. Here, Joseph is depicted as the spouse of the Blessed Virgin, appointed by God, “to be not only her life’s companion, the witness of her maidenhood, the protector of her honour, but also, by virtue of the conjugal tie, a participator in her sublime dignity. … Joseph shines among all mankind by the most august dignity, since by divine will, he was the guardian of the Son of God and reputed as His father among men. Hence it came about that the Word of God was humbly subject to Joseph, that He obeyed him, and that He rendered to him all those offices that children are bound to render to their parents”.
From this two-fold dignity flowed the obligation which nature lays upon the head of families, so that “Joseph became the guardian, the administrator, and the legal defender of the divine house whose chief he was. … He set himself to protect with a mighty love and a daily solicitude his spouse and the Divine Infant; regularly by his work he earned what was necessary for the one and the other for nourishment and clothing; he guarded from death the Child threatened by a monarch’s jealousy, and found for Him a refuge; in the miseries of the journey and in the bitterness of exile he was ever the companion, the assistance, and the upholder of the Virgin and of Jesus. Now the divine house which Joseph ruled with the authority of a father, contained within its limits the scarce-born Church” (§3).
Pope Leo XIII proposed him not only as a permanent and universal exemplary of holiness but also as one of its most outstanding teachers and guides. He writes: “Fathers of families find in Joseph the best personification of paternal solicitude and vigilance; spouses a perfect example of love, of peace, and of conjugal fidelity; virgins at the same time find in him the model and protector of virginal integrity. The noble of birth will earn of Joseph how to guard their dignity even in misfortune; the rich will understand, by his lessons, what are the goods most to be desired and won at the price of their labour.
As to workmen, artisans, and persons of lesser degree, their recourse to Joseph is a special right, and his example is for their particular imitation. For Joseph, of royal blood, united by marriage to the greatest and holiest of women, reputed the father of the Son of God, passed his life in labour, and won by the toil of the artisan the needful support of his family. It is, then, true that the condition of the lowly has nothing shameful in it, and the work of the labourer is not only not dishonouring, but can, if virtue be joined to it, be singularly ennobled. Joseph, content with his slight possessions, bore the trials consequent on a fortune so slender, with greatness of soul, in imitation of his Son, who having put on the form of a slave, being the Lord of life, subjected himself of his own free-will to the spoliation and loss of everything” (§4).
The greatest lesson that we learn from the “just man” (Matt 1, 19) of Nazareth is, “do not fear” (Matt 1, 20). Courage and perseverance are and remain the distinctive and leading driving forces for an ever credible and refreshing witness of Jesus Christ to every generation.
■ Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap
San Gwann