03/19/2026
Below is a reflection for the Feast of St. Joseph by Pope Francis in 2017:
"The choice of Bethlehem and Nazareth tells us that periphery and marginality are preferred by God. Jesus was not born in Jerusalem, with all the court… no, he was born in a periphery and he spent his life in that periphery until the age of thirty, working as a carpenter like Joseph. For Jesus, the peripheries and marginality were favoured. To fail to take this fact seriously is the same as not taking seriously the Gospel and the work of God, who continues to manifest himself in the geographical and existential peripheries...Today Joseph teaches us this: 'Do not look so much at the things that the world praises, look into the corners, look in the shadows, look at the peripheries, at what the world does not want.'" - Pope Francis
