St. Joseph

Joseph was a “just man.” These two words are the main information we have on the Foster-father of Jesus and Spouse of the Blessed Virgin. He was a tekton, a Hebrew word which means he worked with both stone and wood; in English he is generally called a carpenter (Matthew 13: 55, Mark 6: 3). Joseph was of the house of David and his ancestral home was Bethlehem. Some scholars believe Joseph was born and raised in Bethlehem. After the finding of the twelve year old Jesus in the Temple, Scripture makes no more mention of Joseph. It is thought he must have died before the beginning of Our Lord’s public ministry. The fact that Jesus left His Mother in the care of St. John reinforces this conjecture. Apocryphal literature has many tales about Joseph and there may be some facts mixed in with the fiction found here, but it is difficult to ascertain the facts. Some of the stories have Joseph a widower with grown children when he married the young Virgin Mary; one of these children was James the Less who became an Apostle of Jesus, but most scholars discount the story. One story says he did not marry Mary until he was 90 and that he lived to 111. Most scholars think that it is very unlikely that Joseph was an old man when he married Our Lady; he was likely in his early twenties, the customary age for young Israelite men to wed. Despite the lack of facts about Joseph, the Church as always venerated him. The Coptic Church celebrated his feast as early as the fourth century and it is thought that the Basilica built by St. Helena in Jerusalem contained a beautiful chapel honoring Joseph. St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bernard, St. Brigid of Sweden, and St. Gertrude promoted devotion to St. Joseph during the Middle Ages. St. Teresa of Avila was very devoted to the saint. Pope Sixtus IV (1471-1484) fixed his feast on March 19. Responding to the wishes of the faithful and the bishops, Pope Pius IX proclaimed St. Joseph as the patron of the Universal Church in 1870.