S t. Joseph
is the spouse
of the Blessed
Virgin Mary and
the foster-father of
Jesus. His important
mission in God's
plan of salvation was
to legally insert
Jesus Christ into the
line of David
from whom, according to
the prophets, the
Messiah would be born, and to act as his father and guardian.
Most of our information about St. Joseph
comes from the opening two chapters
of St. Matthew's Gospel. No words of
his are recorded
in the Gospels;
he was the
"silent" man. We find
no devotion to
St. Joseph in
the early Church, but
he was later
venerated by the
great saints of the Middle Ages. Pius IX (1870) declared
him patron and protector of the universal family of the Church.
St. Joseph
was an ordinary
manual laborer although descended from
the royal house
of David. In
the designs of Providence
he was destined
to become the
spouse of the Mother of
God. His high
privilege is expressed in
a single phrase, "Foster-father of Jesus." About him Sacred
Scripture has little more to say than that he was a just man - an
expression which indicates
how faithfully he
fulfilled his high
trust of protecting
and guarding God's greatest treasures upon earth, Jesus
and Mary.
The darkest
hours of his
life may well
have been those when
he first learned
of Mary's pregnancy;
but precisely in this
time of trial
Joseph showed himself
great. His suffering, which likewise formed a part of
the work of the redemption, was not
without great providential
import: Joseph was to be, for all times, the trustworthy witness of
the Messiah's virgin
birth. After this,
he modestly retires into the background of Holy
Scripture.
At present
there are two
major feasts in
his honor. On March 19 our veneration is directed to him
personally and to his part in the work of redemption, while on May1 we
honor him as
the patron of
workmen throughout the world.
(excerpt catholicculture.org
