Saint Joseph

Saint Joseph was descended from the house of King David. Despite his noble lineage, Joseph had no wealth. He earned his living as a woodworker and carpenter. According to Saint Justin (c. 100 to c. 166), who lived very close to the time of the Apostles, Joseph made wooden plows and yokes for oxen. So he made farm and agricultural tools.

Betrothed to Mary, Joseph stood before the mystery of the miraculous conception. He was not Christ’s father according to the flesh. He was, however, his father according to Jewish law, as Mary’s lawful husband. When Joseph learned that Mary was expecting a child, knowing that it was not his, he resolved to withdraw quietly from Mary’s life so as not to expose her to disgrace and gossip. But when an angel revealed the mystery to him, he took Mary into his home.

In obedience to the census decree, he went with her to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. After naming the Child and presenting him in the Temple, he fled with the Mother and Child to Egypt in the face of persecution. After Herod’s death he went to Nazareth. Joseph appears for the last time in the pages of Sacred Scripture during the pilgrimage to Jerusalem with the twelve-year-old Jesus. When Jesus begins his public life as Teacher, there is no longer any mention of Joseph.

He had probably died by then. He had the most beautiful death and funeral one can imagine on earth, for Jesus and Mary were with Saint Joseph in the last moments of his life. They also gave him his burial. Perhaps that is why tradition has called him the patron of a happy death.

Iconography has customarily depicted Joseph as an old man. In reality he was a young man in the full vigor of manly beauty and strength.

The Fathers and writers of the Church emphasize that for so intimate a life with Jesus and Mary, Providence chose a man of extraordinary virtue. That is why the Church rightly places Saint Joseph at the head of all the saints and gives him such a distinguished place in hagiography.

Saint Joseph is the patron of the universal Church, of many religious orders, of countries including Austria, Bohemia, the Philippines, Spain, Canada, Portugal, and Peru, and of many dioceses and cities; he is also the patron of Christian spouses and families, of fathers and orphans, as well as of carpenters, woodcutters, artisans, laborers, craftsmen, all workers, and refugees, and, as already mentioned, of a happy death.

In iconography he is depicted holding the Child Jesus in his arms, with a lily in his hand. His attributes include carpenter’s tools (a saw, an ax, a workbench), as well as a water skin, a traveler’s staff, a flowering rod (of Jesse), a bowl of porridge, a lamp, and a vine.