The Bible does not say a lot about Saint Joseph. Granted, Matthew and Luke, with their extensive accounts of the Nativity of the Lord Jesus, do tell us something.
Matthew, of course, begins his Gospel with the genealogy of Joseph (to which we will make reference later), to his discovery of Mary’s pregnancy, his decision to divorce her quietly,(1) and his obedience to the angel who appeared to him in a dream and told him to take Mary as his wife. Likewise, we hear from Matthew of the second dream warning Joseph to take Mary and the child to Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod. But once they have returned from Egypt, Joseph disappears from Matthew’s Gospel.
In the Gospel of Luke, Joseph is less prominent. Mary is described as "a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph,” and throughout the second chapter he is constantly mentioned with Mary by name or as “they," referring to the parents of Jesus. Luke also presents Joseph as the genealogical father of Jesus, and as his reputed father.(2)
And even Mark and John make oblique references, consistent with Matthew and Luke. Mark, for example, the earliest Gospel written, does say that Jesus comes from Nazareth (five times, in fact-(3)) and he is the only evangelist to say that Jesus was a carpenter.(4) Which fits in with Matthew’s description of Joseph as a carpenter and the fact that anyone who ever does mention Joseph says he comes from Nazareth.
John's Gospel mentions Joseph twice: when Philip acclaims Jesus as "Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph”(5) and in a sarcastic utterance "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, 'I have come down from heaven’?" (6)
Beyond that, it’s all apocryphal, relying on much later non-biblical material of doubtful authenticity. But for the Church, the Biblical record has been enough to help us to understand who Saint Joseph is and what he means to us.
Catechism of the Catholic Church
Beyond a retelling of the Biblical record, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (7) affirms that Jesus, like any good son, fulfilled the commandment to honor his father and mother perfectly “and was the temporal image of his filial obedience to his Father in heaven.” the Catechism goes on: “The everyday obedience of Jesus to Joseph and Mary both announced and anticipated the obedience of Holy Thursday: "Not my will…” and that “The obedience of Christ in the daily routine of his hidden life was already inaugurating his work of restoring what the disobedience of Adam had destroyed.”(8) Finally, the Catechism also affirms Saint Joseph’s role as “St. Joseph, the patron of a happy death.”(9)
And while, as you have seen, there is much we might say of out blessed patron, allow me to offer three brief reflections on his role in our lives and the life of the Church concerning Joseph as Guardian of Jesus, Patron of the Church and a good Lenten example for each one of us.
CUSTOS: THE SERVICE OF FATHERHOOD
First, Joseph as Father and Guardian (or as the Latin says, Custos) of the Christ, a title first bestowed on him by It was Pope Leo XIII.
Joseph was the husband of Mary and was given the role of father of Jesus. This is why Saint Matthew starts his Gospel with the words: “The genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”(10) That’s why Joseph has always been called “Mary’s spouse,” why the angel says to him “Do not fear to take Mary as your wife,”(11) and told him to name the child, Jesus. Because Joseph was his father.
Saint Joseph, then, through all those “hidden years” cares for Jesus, just as any father cares for his child.
And there is a certain irony in all this, not to be missed. For here you have Joseph exercising authority over the one through whom he was made, explaining the scriptures to the one who is the source of all truth and protecting the omnipotent Son of the Living God.
Nonetheless, and here is a great mystery, Joseph was, day in an day out, the guardian of the mystery “hidden from ages past,”(12) the revelation of the face of God.
Like any good father, Joseph sacrificed for his Son. He got up with Mary for the two am feeding, he dropped everything whenever his son needed him, forsake the pursuit of money or sleep or any other human necessity for the sake of his son.
All because he loved Jesus, showering him with “all the natural love, all the affectionate solicitude that a father's heart can know.”(13) Joseph cared for Jesus, nurtured and protected him above all other concerns. And Jesus, in turn, obeyed him as his father and rendered to him that honor and reverence that children owe to their father.” And through this filial and fatherly love, human bonds were deepened.
PATRON OF THE CHURCH
And it is because he is guardian of the Christ, that Saint Joseph has been recognized as the patron of the Church by Pope Pius IX.
It was 1870, and it seemed the whole world was against Pope Pius IX. “In these most troublesome times,” he wrote, “the Church is beset by enemies on every side, and is weighed down by calamities so heavy that ungodly men assert that the gates of hell have at length prevailed against her…”(14)
The Papal States had just been taken away from the Pope by Garibaldi, a large portion of the people of Italy had turned against him, to the extent that he was defended against the populace by Swiss and German troops.
Times were changing rapidly and the Pope was often besieged, sometimes not recognizing the signs of the times imperfectly, as when he wrote to Jefferson Davis in the opening days of the American Civil War, addressing him as the “Illustrious and Honorable President of the Confederate States of America.” I understand that Mr. Lincoln was not pleased.
So it seemed to Pius that the whole world was against him and against the Church he sought to steer, so he turned to heaven and in 1870, the second year of the First Vatican Council, he declared St. Joseph as Patron of the Universal Church.
What this meant, Pope Leo XIII would later write is that, “in the same way that Saint Joseph once kept unceasing holy watch over the family of Nazareth, so now does he protect and defend with his heavenly patronage the Church of Christ.”
That’s the same Pope Leo XIII who in 1884 declared the universal Church to be under e patronage of Saint Joseph.
What does it mean that Saint Joseph is patron of the Churchl? It means the same thing for us as it did for Jesus.
Like any good father, Saint Joseph is first an example for us of what it means to be a good man. I have always loved the quote from Lewis Mumford that people learn ideas “not by discussion and argument, but by seeing them personified and by loving the person who so embodies them.”(15)
By loving Saint Joseph, the personification of the sanctifying love of Jesus his son, we become sanctified, we become loving. By adopting the paternal patronage of the just man, we become just.
Thus because Joseph teaches us how to be a follower of Christ and how to be a Church which hears the word of God with reverence,(16) we find in him, as Pope Saint John Paul II described it, “the model of obedience made incarnate…the man known for having faithfully carried out God's commands.”(17)
Picture this holy patriarch cradling the Christ child in his arms as Mary sleeps, sheltering mother and child on the flight into Egypt, and in the home at Nazareth.
Up until recently, except for Padre Pio, St. Joseph was the most popular saint in Italy, although St. Francis of Assisi always gave him a good run for his money.
It’s because St. Joseph is the accessible saint, the quiet father in the background, the good man, achieving sanctity not through mighty deeds but, through “a life lived in the greatness of every day life, but with steadfast faith in Providence.”
He is the one described by Dei Verbum, who “hearing the word of God with reverence”6 manifests “an absolute readiness to serve faithfully God's salvific will.”7
PRIMACY OF THE HEART
And he is the best example for us when he is sleeping.
When an angel comes to him in a dream and tells him the will of God, he is “receptive to God’s plans and not simply to his own.”(18)
• Finding the virgin he loves to be with child, he prepares to divorce her quietly in order to spare her whatever shame he can. But when an angel whispers into his sleeping ear: “Do not fear to take her as your wife,” he does it.
• Threatened by Herod’s wrath, he hears the angel yet again, now telling him to take mother and child and flee to Egypt. And, again, he listens and obeys, “discreetly, humbly and silently, even when he finds it hard to understand.”
Perhaps this is why so many depictions of Saint Joseph show him sleeping. But his is not just any kind of sleep. It is the sleep of a man so inwardly in tune with God that even at rest “the depths of his soul are open and receptive.”(19) It is the kind of sleep described by the Song of Songs: “I was sleeping, but my heart was awake.”(20)
And herein is the lesson this Patron of the Church leaves with us for Lent. Listen to the quiet of your heart,
Ours is a world of sensory overload, imbued with a cacophony of beeps and tweets and incessant talk. All trying to sell us, convince us and distract us from the sanctuary of the silent heart. As Cardinal Sarah reminds us: “There is no place on earth where God is more present than in the human heart. This heart truly is God’s abode, the temple of silence… The Father waits for his children in their own hearts”(21)
And Pope Saint John Paul II reminded us in his great Apostolic Exhortation Redemptoris Custos(22) that this silence extends beyond our Saint Joseoph’s sleep, as we can imagine him silently plying his trade as a carpenter in the house of Nazareth.
For while we so often speak of the great deeds of men, the secret of Saint Joseph is in his silence, his putting away of all the distractions, his listening to God alone in the silence of hid heart. Or, as his namesake, our beloved Pope Emeritus once pour it:
“Joseph, who sleeps, but who at the same time is alert to hear the voice that rings out in his soul and from on high…someone who unites inner recollection and promptness…, inviting us to withdraw a little from the tumult of the senses; to recover our inner recollection; to learn to look inside ourselves and to look up, so that God can touch our souls and speak his word to us.”(23)
So let us thank the Lord for thus Custos of the Christ, this Patron of this Cathedral and the Church throughout the world. And let us learn from him, in littleness, silence and joy.
_____________________
1 Matt. 1:19.
2 Cf. Luke 3:23 and 4:22..
3 Mk 1:9,24; 10:47; 14:67; 16:6.
4 Mk 6:3.
5 Jn 1:45
6 Jn 6:42
7 Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 532.
8 Cf. Rom 5:19.
9 CCC, no. 1014.
10 Matthew 1:1.
11 Matthew 1:20.
12 RC, no. 25.
13 Pius XII, Radio Message to Catholic School Students in the United States of America (February 19, 1958): AAS 50 (1958), p.174.
14 Sacred Congregation of Rites, Decree Quemadmodum Deus (1870)
15 Lewis Mumford, The Conduct of Life (1956).
16 Cf. Dei Verbum. Constitution on Divine Revelation of the Second Vatican Council has said, the basic attitude of the entire Church must be that of "hearing the word of God with reverence,”(46)
17 RC, no. 30.
18 Pope Francis, Inaugural Homily (19 March 2013).
19 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Homily (March 19, 1992).
20 Song of Songs 5:2.
21 The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise by Robert Cardinal Sarah with Nicolas Diat, Translated by Michael J. Miller, Ignatius Press, 2016. page 23.
22 Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Redemptoris Custos (August 15, 1989).
23 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Homily (March 19, 1992).
