St Joseph was the husband of Mary and the legal Jewish guardian of Our Lord. In the Gospels he is mentioned as the reputed father of Jesus - an understandable error considering the mystery of the Incarnation.  To satisfy the Old Testament prophecies that the Messiah would be a descendent of King David, the Gospel genealogies have Joseph both to Davis through either Solomon or Nathan. All that matters is that Joseph was of David’s line; his links to Jesus fulfilled the prophecies.

Joseph was a native of Bethlehem or had property there; this made it obligatory for him to take his pregnant wife Mary there for the census. The Infancy Narratives record his engagement and marriage to Mary in accordance with the Jewish customs of the time. Caught up in the mystery of the birth of Christ, he was moved from bewilderment to a final acceptance in the faith of God’s will for him. All we know of St Joseph comes from the Gospels. After the incident of the Finding of the Lost Jesus in the Temple, Joseph disappears from Scriptures.

We presume he continued his work as a craftsman in his carpenter’s shop, living as a family man, providing all that was needed in safety and security for Mary and Jesus. Tradition holds that, like Mary, he remained chaste by choice and thus protected Mary’s perpetual virginity - a role that only a strong God-centred man could fulfil. His gift of chastity in the life of the Holy Family has long been recognised for its value of total self-giving in the service of God.

St Joseph’s quiet life behind the scenes was praised by medieval saints such as St Bernard and St Thomas Aquinas. In 1324 Joseph was honoured with his own Feastday -19 March. For some time after 1621 it was even a holyday of obligation. In 1870 he was proclaimed Patron of the Universal Church by Pope Pius IX and with the rise of Communism in Europe was honoured St Joseph the Worker with a Feastday of on 1 May as a Christian response to the God-less May Day celebrations.  Pope John XXIII called on him to protect the Second Vatican Council and in 1962 added his name beside that of Mary in the Roman Canon in Eucharistic Prayer Number 1.

In our annual Novena in honour of St Joseph we pray to him to protect the sanctity of family life and those who provide and care for family members. He is invoked for all working people as a protection against political or economic exploitation. We pray to him for refugees and asylum seekers because he, too, had to take Mary and Jesus to seek refuge in Egypt when their lives were in danger in their own homeland.

St Joseph is especially invoked for lapsed Catholics and all who have moved away from the Church. There were things that St Joseph didn’t understand: he too was puzzled about God’s plan for him. May he intercede for all who find God’s will almost impossible to understand, that they will rediscover the meaning of faith and trust and return to their baptismal home.