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JOSEPHOLOGY
Devotion to St. Joseph
by John O’Connell
Over the course of the centuries, the Church’s understanding of St. Joseph and his role in the economy of salvation has deepened, and correspondingly, devotion among the faithful to the “just man” has grown. In the early Church, devotion to St. Joseph was not widespread, though neither was it unknown, especially in the East. Certainly, many of the Church fathers, e.g., St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom, spoke admiringly of Joseph.
Devotion to St. Joseph gradually grew in the Church. St. Teresa of Avila in the 16th century proved to be Joseph’s greatest champion, zealously promoting devotion to the great Saint Joseph. Since that time devotion to Joseph has generally flourished.
In the 19th century Venerable Pius IX declared St. Joseph to be the Patron of the Universal Church. By doing so, the Supreme Pontiff acknowledged that God had put the Holy Patriarch in charge of His household, the Church. Pope Pius XII instituted the feast of St. Joseph the Worker in 1955. It could be said that the apex of the veneration of Joseph came in the early 1960’s when Pope John XXIII inserted Joseph’s name into the Roman Canon of the Mass.
However, after the Second Vatican Council devotion to Joseph waned. Today though there are signs of a revival of popular devotion to Joseph.
Scripture
Scripture records not one word of Joseph’s. Yet the glimpse of Joseph that the Gospel affords serves as a foundation for the devotion and theology of Joseph. It is also true that many saints believe that Joseph of the Old Testament prefigured St. Joseph.
God communicated to Joseph in dreams as He did to St. Joseph. Providence arranged that the Pharaoh placed Joseph over of his household; God put St. Joseph in charge of the Holy Family. Joseph brought the Israelites to Egypt in time of famine; St. Joseph brought the Holy Family to Egypt to escape Herod’s Deicidal designs.
The Gospels clearly record that God selected Joseph as the putative father of Jesus and the virginal spouse of the Immaculate Mother of God. God entrusted Jesus and Mary to Joseph’s care. Joseph was the Head of the Holy Family. Not only tradition, but also Scripture attests to this marvelous truth. That is why the angel appeared to Joseph in a dream telling him to take Mary and the Christ Child to Egypt.
Devotion to Joseph largely derives from the realization that he possessed a supremely exalted vocation and mission. One of the stanzas from the hymn Te Joseph Celebrent expresses the sublimity of Joseph’s vocation:
Other saints receive their beatitude after death
They receive their glory when they have won the palm:
But thou, by a strangely happy lot, hadst even during life,
What the blessed have in heaven—the sweet society of thy God.
St. Matthew in his Gospel states that Joseph was a "just man." Joseph loved the Torah: he faithfully fulfilled his duties to both God and his neighbor. Joseph was a man of great virtue. It makes spiritual sense that God would grant extraordinary graces to the one whom had received such a sublime vocation. And Joseph, the "just man," cooperated fully with the graces God bestowed upon him.
Father
Joseph was not the biological father of Christ—he did not physically generate Jesus—but he was the putative father and the legal father of Christ. God willed that the world would know Joseph as the father of Jesus Christ to cloak for a time the mystery of the Virgin Birth of Our Lord. Several passages in the New Testament relate that the people considered Joseph to be the father of Christ.
When Christ came to Nazareth during His public ministry the people of Nazareth remarked,
….‘How did this man come by this wisdom and these miracles? Is not this the carpenter’s son?’…. (Mt 13:54-55) (cf. Lk 4:20-22).
Mary herself says to her Son in the Temple, "your father and I have been looking for you"(Lk 2:48). After professing that Joseph did not physically generate Christ and that the Blessed Virgin Mary conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can assert that Joseph is in a real sense the father of Jesus. St. Augustine says that Joseph was the father of the human spirit of Christ.
St. Luke in his Gospel mentions that Joseph was of the House of David (Lk 1:27). Joseph and the Holy Virgin were related. Providence had arranged that Joseph the putative father of Jesus, the Son of David, also belonged to the royal House of David.
Virginal Spouse
God also granted Joseph the privilege of becoming the chaste, celibate, virginal spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Apocrypha depicts Joseph as an older man—and many works of art have also done so—he often looks more like Mary’s father than her husband. Of course, the impetus behind this representation of Joseph as an elderly man is to safeguard the teaching of the Virgin Birth. However, neither Scripture nor the Church’s teaching suggests that Joseph was of an advanced age at the time of his betrothal to Mary.
Mary was betrothed to Joseph when the Archangel Gabriel appeared to her with his glorious announcement. Since many eminent spiritual writers believe that Mary had taken a vow of virginity before the Annunciation, we can with good reason infer that Joseph had also resolved to remain a virgin before he had discovered the awesome news of the Virgin’s miraculous conception.
Patron of Workers
According to tradition, Jesus as a youth served as an apprentice to St. Joseph, learning Joseph’s craft and trade in his workshop. Joseph was a workman or carpenter. His work is how he provided for the Holy Family and how he spent most of his day. Meditating upon the life of Joseph has aided the Church to more fully realize that human labor can be a source of holiness. Like Joseph Christians through their labor can participate in both God’s ongoing work of creation and the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.
Patron of a Happy Death
Because Scripture makes no mention of Joseph during the public ministry of Christ (except when making reference to Joseph as the father of Jesus), tradition asserts that Joseph died (probably shortly) before the beginning of Christ’s public ministry. Tradition speaks of Joseph dying in the presence of Jesus and Mary. For very good reason then, the Church has declared St. Joseph to be the Patron of a Happy Death.
Patron of Patrons
St. Teresa of Avila, the great Doctor of the Church, explains why she took St. Joseph as her patron:
I took for my advocate and lord the glorious St. Joseph and earnestly recommended myself to him. I saw clearly that as in this need so in the other great ones concerning honor and loss of soul this father and lord of mine came to my rescue in better ways than I knew how to ask for. I don’t recall up to this day ever having petitioned him for anything that he fails to grant. It is an amazing thing the great favors God has granted me through the mediation of this blessed saint, the dangers I was freed from both of body and soul. For with other saints it seems the Lord has given them grace to be of help in one need, whereas with this glorious saint I have experience that he helps in all our needs and that the Lord wants us to understand that just as He was subject to St. Joseph on earth—for since bearing the title of father, being the Lord’s tutor, Joseph could give the Child commands—so in heaven God does whatever he commands.
( Life, from The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, ICS Publications, p. 53)
St. Joseph’s preeminent sanctity and his holy intimacy with Jesus and Mary recommend him as a patron and model of sanctity to all the faithful. Certainly, the Church has counseled the faithful to both imitate Joseph and to have recourse to him in prayer. Devotion to Joseph is Christocentric and Marian because devotion to Joseph brings one to closer union with Jesus and Mary. It is almost impossible to think of Joseph without thinking about the rest of the Holy Family—Jesus and Mary. Devotion to Joseph is ecclesial because the Church in her liturgy and in the writings of her popes and saints has zealously encouraged the faithful to go to Joseph. Devotion to Joseph is universal, because he is a model for all Christians. He was a husband, a father, a worker, and a consecrated virgin, with a priestly heart.
John O’Connell is the editor of The Catholic Faith magazine.
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