St. Joseph - March 19

Venerated as a saint, St. Joseph is a biblical figure who is believed to have been the corporeal father of Jesus Christ. St. Joseph first appears in the Bible in the gospels of Matthew and Luke where his lineage is traced back to King David. According to the visions of Venerable Mother Mary of Agreda, Joseph was born circa 47 BC and later wed the Virgin Mary when she was 14 and remained married to her for 27 years. He died in Israel at the age of 60 around AD 13. Everything we know for certain about St. Joseph, the husband of Mary and the foster father of Jesus, comes from the Bible, and mentions of him are underwhelming. The 13 New Testament books written by Paul (the epistles) make no reference to him at all, nor does the Gospel of Mark, the first of the Gospels. Joseph first appears in the Bible in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, each of which traces Joseph's lineage back to King David but through different sons; Matthew follows the major royal line from Solomon, while Luke traces another line back to Nathan, another son of David and Bathsheba. Consequently, all the names between David and Joseph are different. Most scholars reconcile the genealogies by viewing the Solomonic lineage in Matthew as Joseph's major royal line, and the Nathanic lineage in Luke to be Mary's minor line.To add to the problem of not knowing enough about Joseph, some apocryphal writings—such as the second-century Protevangelium of James and the fourth-century History of Joseph the Carpenter—muddy the historical waters further, presenting him as a widower with children when he met Mary and claiming that he lived to the age of 111. These claims, however, are spurious and most are not accepted by the church. After marrying Mary, Joseph found that she was already pregnant, and being "a just man and unwilling to put her to shame" (Matt. 1:19), he decided to divorce her quietly, knowing that if he did so publicly, she could be stoned to death. An angel, however, came to Joseph and told him that the child Mary carried was the son of God and was conceived by the Holy Spirit, so Joseph kept Mary as his wife. After Jesus's birth in Bethlehem, an angel came to Joseph again, this time to warn him and Mary about King Herod of Judaea and the violence he would bring down upon the child. Joseph then fled to Egypt with Mary and Jesus, and the angel appeared again, telling Joseph that Herod had died and instructing him to return to the Holy Land. Avoiding Bethlehem and possible actions by Herod's successor, Joseph, Mary and Jesus settled in Nazareth, in Galilee. The Gospels describe Joseph as a "tekton," which is a Greek word that means “one who works with his hands.” Traditionally, this word has been translated as "carpenter," and it is assumed that Joseph taught his craft to Jesus in Nazareth. At this point, however, Joseph is never mentioned again by name in the Bible. The last time Joseph appears in person in any Gospel is in the story of the Passover visit to the Temple in Jerusalem when Jesus is 12 years old, found only in Luke. No mention is made of him thereafter. The story emphasizes Jesus' awareness of his coming mission: here Jesus speaks to his parents (both of them) of "my father," meaning God, but they fail to understand. The circumstances of Joseph's death are not known, but it is likely that he died before Jesus's ministry began, and it is implied that he was dead before the Crucifixion (John 19:26-27). According to the visions of Venerable Mother Mary of Agreda (1602-1665), “The most fortunate of men, Saint Joseph reached an age of sixty years and a few days.  For at the age of thirty-three he espoused the blessed Virgin and he lived with Her a little longer than twenty-seven years as her husband.  When Saint Joseph died, She had completed the half of her forty-second year; for She was espoused to Saint Joseph at the age of fourteen. The twenty-seven years of her married life completed her forty-first year, to which must be added the time from the eighth of September until the death of her blessed spouse.  The Queen of heaven still remained in the same disposition of natural perfection as in her thirty-third year; for she showed no signs of decline, or of more advanced age, or of weakness, but always remained in that same most perfect state of womanhood.  She felt the natural sorrow due to the death of Saint Joseph: for She loved him as her spouse, as a man preeminent in perfection and holiness and as her protector and benefactor.” Already a patron saint of Mexico, Canada and Belgium, in 1870, Joseph was declared patron of the universal church by Pope Pius IX, and in 1955 Pope Pius XII established May 1 as the "Feast of St. Joseph the Worker" to counter the Communists' May Day. Pope Pius IX declared him to be both the patron and the protector of the Catholic Church, in addition to his patronages of the sick and of a happy death, due to the belief that he died in the presence of Jesus and Mary. In popular piety, Joseph is regarded as a model for fathers, and, of course, many people when trying to sell their homes will bury a little statue of St. Joseph upside down in their yard until their home sells.