19/03/2023
Happy Feast of St Joseph😇
St Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Little definite information has come down to us about the chosen soul who was to be, in God’s providence, the earthly guardian of Our Lady and the Foster-father of the Incarnate Word. All that is reliably known of this “just man” named Joseph is contained in the first two chapters of the Gospels of Sts Matthew and Luke. In the apocryphal writings, which furnish us with many interesting details, it is next to impossible to separate those reports which may be based on true historical occurrences from those which are the product of pious imagination.
From the fact that there is no further reference to Joseph in the Bible after the finding of the boy Jesus in the temple, it has been reasonably inferred that he did not live to see the beginning of Our Lord’s public ministry.
St Teresa of Avila (Spain) chose St Joseph as the Patron of her reform of the Carmelite Order and her nuns were given the privilege in 1689 of keeping a feast honouring his patronage.
Joseph is, no doubt, the greatest and most beloved of all the saints of the Catholic Church next only to Mary. His greatness and that of Mary is measured by their closeness to Jesus Christ when he came to earth two millennia ago as the Word-Made-Flesh, the God-With-Us, to impart eternal life to all who believed in him. Little wonder then that Pope Pius IX, on 8 December 1870, in response to the petition of the over 300 prelates assembled at Vatican Council I (1869-70), proclaimed Joseph the Patron Saint of the Universal Church. In 1955 Pope Pius XII added the title, “Patron of workmen”, the feast to be celebrated on 1 May.
Shared from Word of God.
