Fr John Flader: Get to know Joseph, the greatest human father

Q: Can you tell me something about devotion to St Joseph? Some of my friends have great devotion to him but I have never really managed to have much. Is this devotion new or old in the Church?

A: It is only natural to have devotion to the one chosen by God from all eternity to be the husband of Mary, the Mother of God, and the guardian – or, as I like to say, the spiritual father – of Jesus, the Son of God.
St Joseph, while a silent and rather inconspicuous figure in the Gospels – he is sometimes called “Joseph the silent” – thus had a very special role to play in the history of salvation.
Even though he was a descendant of the royal family of King David, Joseph was a simple craftsman. He must have felt overawed and even unworthy when faced with the responsibility of taking care of the Son of God and being the head of the Holy Family.
He was undoubtedly the person who spent the most time with Jesus, working with him in his workshop and teaching him his trade.
St Joseph was always docile to the will of God, responding immediately when God manifested his will to him on three occasions in dreams (cf. Mt 1:20-25; 2:13-15, 19-21).
The liturgy for the feast of St Joseph on 19 March uses Scriptural texts to highlight some of his many virtues. The Entrance Antiphon reads: “The Lord has put his faithful servant in charge of his household.” The Prayer over the Gifts says: “Father, with unselfish love Saint Joseph cared for your Son, born of the Virgin Mary.”
And in the Preface we read: “He is that just man, that wise and loyal servant, whom you placed at the head of your family. With a husband’s love he cherished Mary, the virgin Mother of God. With fatherly care he watched over Jesus Christ your Son, conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Although one of the apocryphal gospels says that Joseph was an old man when he married Our Lady, we like to think of him as young and strong, living in complete continence with Mary by a special grace of God.
It is not clear when Joseph died, although he is not mentioned in the Gospels at the time of Our Lord’s public life so it is probable that he died sometime before then.
Devotion to St Joseph developed very early in the history of the Church. It appears to have originated in the East at the beginning of the 4th century, particularly with the Copts in Egypt.
Nicephorus Callistus relates that there was a beautiful chapel dedicated to St Joseph in the 4th century basilica in Bethlehem built by St Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine.
In the West the name of St Joseph appears in local martyrologies of the 9th and 10th centuries, and in 1129 the first church was dedicated to him in Bologna.
From the 12th to 14th centuries, Saints Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas Aquinas, Gertrude and Bridget of Sweden all promoted devotion to him.
In the 15th century, St Bernardine of Siena and St Vincent Ferrer had great devotion to St Joseph, giving rise to a great flowering of the devotion from then on.
In the same century, John Gerson composed an Office of the Espousals of St Joseph, and during the pontificate of Sixtus IV (1471-84), his feast was added to the Roman Calendar, to be celebrated on 19 March.
The 19th century saw a new flourishing of devotion to St Joseph, especially among workers, and in 1870 Pope Pius IX solemnly declared him patron of the universal Church.
Pope Leo XIII wrote the encyclical Quamquam pluries promoting devotion to St Joseph in 1889 and, on the centenary of this encyclical in 1989, Pope John Paul II wrote Redemptoris custos.
In 1955 Pope Pius XII introduced the feast of St Joseph the Worker, to be celebrated on May 1.
St Joseph is the patron saint of the Universal Church, of carpenters, travellers, house hunters, and of a happy death.
There is every reason to have devotion to this great saint, who has so much to teach us. If Mary was given to us by Jesus from the Cross to be our mother (cf. Jn 19:26-27), then St Joseph can be considered our father. The fourth commandment, “Honour your father and mother”, certainly requires that we honour Joseph and Mary, our spiritual parents.
Fr Flader: director@caec.com.au