Discovering the Greatness of Saint Joseph
Part I: The Growth of His Devotion
By Father Paul K. Raftery, O.P.
In His great wisdom, God has placed tremendous
examples of holiness
among the members of
the Church. Outstanding among these is Mary, the Mother
of Our Savior. As Saint
Thomas has observed, there can be no doubt that she,
who was closest to
the very font of grace for the  human race, namely the Incarnation
of God in Jesus
Christ, surpasses all others in grace (III, 27, 5). Like the piece of metal that
takes on the white hot glow of the furnace
when it is thrust into the fire, so Mary took on, more than
any other, the fiery likeness of God
that we call holiness. Her
unique closeness to the divine radiance emanating
from Christ made
her absorb that radiance all the more. Next to her, however, the one
to whom we give the greatest honor is Saint Joseph. Not certainly to the same extent as Mary, but far more than that of any other member
of the Church, he was illumined by the divine
radiance of the Eternal
Son. In the next two web
pages we will be looking more closely at the virtues
and holiness of this saint, so hidden from our eyes, yet so great
among the company of saints.
The Belated Devotion
The devotion to Saint Joseph,
strangely enough, arose rather late in the span of Church history.
Cardinal Newman observes that if any of the saints were to receive
devotion early on, Joseph would be an
obvious candidate: "Who, from his prerogatives and the
testimony on which they come to us, had a greater claim to receive an early recognition
than he? A saint of scripture, the foster father of our Lord, he was an object of the
universal and absolute faith of the Christian world from the first . . . ."
Yet so slow were the faithful to respond to him in popular
devotion: "When once it began, men seemed
surprised that it had not been thought of before . . . ." (quoted
in F. Filas, S.J., Joseph: the Man Closest to Jesus, 351).
Certainly it was not a matter of doubt about the greatness
of his sanctity. Other circumstances were at play.
Foremost among these was the role of martyrdom
in the early Church’s veneration of saints.
What caught the attention of early Christians was the sacrifice of life
for the sake of faith.
How could it not? On the one hand, it is the ultimate form of Christian
witness and the most intimate kind of participation in Our Blessed Lord's passion.
But on the other hand, the sheer numbers of martyrs,
and the real threat of execution for the average Christian, made them the overwhelming candidates for veneration.
The outlook of the times is well reflected in the book of Revelation,
written by Saint John around A.D. 95. In one of his visions John
sees a vast multitude clothed in
white robes with palm
branches in their hands. They are "before
the throne of God, and serve Him day and night within His temple..."
(7:15). A few chapters later they are described as those who "loved not their lives even unto death" (12:13). John's
vision of the saints in glory is a vision of
martyrs.
Adoration of the Lamb - Saint John's vision of Martyrs with Palm Branches
- by Jan van Eyck - detail from the Gent Altar-Piece
(From ancient times, palm-branches were symbols of victory and triumph. In the New
Testament, the palm-branches became a symbol of martyrdom (Revelation 7:9) meaning victory over death. For this reason in Christian
art, martyrs
were usually represented with palms in their hands.)
The first saints other than martyrs to
receive special veneration by the Church did not come along until the
later fourth century, including figures like the abbot Saint Anthony of
the Desert, and bishops Saint Athanasius and Saint
Martin of Tours. These were the "confessors,"
Christians who bore witness to Jesus not by heroic
death on account of His
name, but by heroic
virtue in the midst of life's trials. Still, with this new category of saints
there was an immediacy of contact. These were people known and revered by their
contemporaries, and the reputation for holiness
during their lives here on earth provided the impetus for turning to
their intercession after death.
What we can say, then, is that the early veneration of saints tended to
be in response to a life that could be seen and experienced first hand.
Aside from Blessed Mary, only much later
did popular devotion turn to people like Saint Joseph,
Saint Elizabeth, and Saint Zachaiah. The holiness of such individuals (which, if at all,
could perhaps be attested by only a few people living at the end of the first century)
depended solely on pondering the scriptures.
Hence, the scriptural commentaries of the church fathers
were an important part of this rise in devotion to such saints,
particularly Saint Joseph. Through
the likes of Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Jerome, and Saint
Augustine, the greatness of Joseph's holiness
was brought before the faithful.
Eventually the popular devotion grew to the point where Saint
Joseph was brought into the celebration of the liturgy.
This happened first in the post-Christmas liturgies of
the Eastern Church.  The Sunday
after Christmas, a practice continued to this day in Eastern
Christianity, was dedicated to Saint Joseph the
Betrothed. In the West, a special commemoration of Saint Joseph began around 700 in northern Europe
on March 20, which by a hundred years later had moved to its present date
of March 19. As the devotion to
Saint Joseph continued to spread in the West,
so did the prominence of the liturgical observance. At first only a locally observed
commemoration, by the 1300's it had moved up to the rank of feast. Then,
with the proclamation of Saint
Joseph as Patron of the Universal Church by
Pius IX in 1870, it had moved to its present status as a solemnity
celebrated by the entire Church. One final, and
again, surprisingly late development, was the addition of Saint
Joseph's name to the list of saints in the Roman
Eucharistic Prayer; this not until 1962, under the insistence of Pope
John XXIII.
The Apocrypha
Although in the early Church there was no particular attention given
to Saint Joseph liturgically, he was nevertheless far from being ignored. As we
have mentioned, there were the scriptural commentaries of the church
fathers extolling his
greatness. But another very popular kind of early Christian
literature in which Joseph receives
extensive treatment are the apocrypha. These were short stories, so to
speak, based upon the Gospel accounts, but often launching into bizarre
and fanciful elaborations. They pretend to offer "secret"
information about early life of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph;
hence the name "apocrypha," Greek for
"things hidden." Their authors are unknown, though they were
commonly attributed to one of the apostles or evangelists
to enhance their reputation among the faithful. One of the better known apocryphal
accounts is the Protoevangelium of James,
which scholars have dated to the early part of the first century. The material it contains
was taken up by later apocryphal works, which continued to be written
through the seventh century.
The Protoevangelium tells us of
the birth of Mary
to an elderly couple, Joachim and Ann. Mary, as a small child, is consecrated
to God and is taken in by the virgins who live
and pray in the Temple. When she reaches the age for marriage, arrangements are
made to find a spouse for her. Elderly widowers are asked to present themselves before the
High Priest, and a prayer is raised that God
would indicate by a miraculous sign who is
to be Mary’s husband.
The sign comes when out of the staff of Joseph
flies a dove that alights on his head. The couple are then betrothed. Joseph is thus presented as an old man who will
protect and provide for the Virgin Mary, but
will obviously not be capable of marital relations. What is more, he
has children from his previous marriage.
These, so the Protoevangelium
implies, are the explanation for passages in the Gospels regarding the
"brethren of Jesus". The story concludes
with a highly fictionalized portrayal of a true event, one of the teachings of the Church,
the miraculous preservation of Mary’s virginal integrity at
the birth of Jesus.
Essentially, the story is a defense of Mary’s
virginity before, during, and after the birth of
Jesus. To further its apologetic aim, Joseph is presented as an elderly widower with
children, which proved to be very useful in the early Church’s
defense of Mary’s perpetual virginity.
In fact, the theme of the elderly widower became the standard response for many of the
church fathers to questions regarding the brethren of the Lord.
Saint Epiphanius, Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Saint
Ephrem, and Saint Hilary all support the idea of a previous
marriage for Joseph. Among these fathers, Saint
Jerome had very much of a different mind.
The Virginity of Saint Joseph
Saint Jerome was the first to propose that Jesus,
Mary, and Joseph
compose a family distinctly marked
by virginity. Addressing the heretic Helvidius, who denied the perpetual virginity
of Our Lady, Jerome
writes:
You say that Mary did not continue a virgin: I claim still
more, that Joseph himself on account of Mary was a virgin, so that from a virgin wedlock a
virgin son was born (The Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin,
21).
What he, in effect, is suggesting is a method of interpreting the scriptural
data about Saint Joseph in a way
that harmonizes with the virginal calling of
Our Blessed Lord and His
mother. The gospels are
silent on a previous marriage of Saint Joseph.
So does this mean we turn to the imaginary accounts of the apocrypha? Not
at all. We must not be led by the "ravings of the apocryphal
accounts." Rather he directs our attention to the life of perfect chastity lived by
Jesus and Mary,
which speaks so loudly and eloquently of their relationship with
God. In the life of Jesus,
we can see how this chastity proclaims that
whole purpose of His entering
the world was to fulfill the will of His heavenly Father. In the life of Mary it proclaims that she
who conceived the Son
of God by the power of
the Holy Spirit now has been sanctified, and whose body
is entirely consecrated to God. So this virginal vocation of
both Jesus and Mary,
Jerome implies, is what needs to
guide our interpretation of Joseph. In this
context, it would be surprising for Joseph
not to be a virgin. It
would be surprising that the virgin mother who
begets the virgin child,
was not protected and sustained
by a husband who was virgin as well;
that the divine calling of virginity
was not present throughout the family. Thus we discern
who Saint Joseph is through the one for whom he
is husband, and
the One for Whom he
is foster father.
The sacred virginity of their lives tells us
of the sacred virginity that God must have wanted to characterize
Joseph's life as well.
Saint Jerome’s interpretation begins a trend that becomes
dominant in Western authors. Scriptural commentators from Bede
in the seventh century to Rabanus Maurus in the ninth, basing themselves
on Saint Jerome, spoke of the life-long virginity
of Saint Joseph.
By the middle of the eleventh century, there was such a common conviction about it that Saint
Peter Damian could say: "If it does not suffice
for you that not only the mother is a virgin, there remains the belief of the Church that
he who served as the father is also a virgin" (Filas,
99).
Saint Thomas, about two hundred years later, adds that further
confirmation of Saint Joseph's virginity
is to be found in Christ's words to
His mother
standing beneath the cross. There, Saint
Thomas implies, God
reveals the kind of person He
wishes to care for Blessed Mary.
Whom does He choose?
A virgin, John the apostle. In his commentary on Galatians,
Saint Thomas tackles the issue of children of Joseph by a deceased wife. He pointedly states: "But this is false, for if the Lord did not wish his virgin mother to be
entrusted to the care of anyone but a virgin [i.e., the apostle John], how could He have
suffered that her spouse was not a virgin, and as such would have persisted?"
(Ad Galatas, I:19). And this, Saint Thomas lead us to
realize, should be persuasive. Such an act of
Christ on the cross
is just as much a work of Divine Providence
caring for the Blessed Virgin,
as the Providence He was
exercising when providing her
with a husband.
The Providence of God on
the cross, entrusting
His mother
to a virgin, reveals
the Providence of God in
preparation for His incarnation.
Both Saint Peter Damian’s statement and Saint
Thomas’ insistence on the falsehood of the apocryphal legend
show how fully Saint Joseph’s virginity
has been accepted into Church teaching. From their time to our own, this
belief has prevailed in the West, and for the past one thousand years it has never been
seriously challenged. This thousand year period of acceptance is itself a profound
confirmation of the truth of
Joseph’s virginity.
Having said this, however, it should be clarified that our belief in Saint
Joseph’s virginity has never been considered part of
the deposit of the faith, and
therefore obligatory for us to accept. Room continues to be made for viewing Saint Joseph as an aged widower, as many of the Greek
fathers taught, a tradition maintained in the Eastern
Orthodox Church.
The Unique Marriage
Given what has been said about the place virginity played in the lives
of Mary and Joseph,
particularly in their marriage, some important questions can be raised regarding the
nature of their relationship. What effect does their complete abstinence from marital
relations have on the reality of their relationship as husband and wife? Is the marital
bond truly present? Does their chastity prevent them from having
a true marriage?
Saint Thomas is a great help with these questions. He explains that
the perfection of matrimony comes from what truly gives marriage its
"form," which is to say its most essential
characteristic, that which distinguishes marriage from any other
relationship between a man and a woman. "The form,
however, of matrimony consists in a certain indivisible union of souls, through which one
spouse is held to maintain an unfailing fidelity to another" (III, 29,
2). So what makes a relationship between a man and woman to be a marriage
is not, at its most basic level, the sharing a common bed,
nor the emotional and material support couples provide
for each other, nor even the procreation of
children. These all do indeed contribute to and express a marital relationship,
but all of these can be part of relationship where there is no marriage
present. This we can unfortunately see these days in so many couples choosing cohabitation
before they commit to marriage. What in fact establishes the marriage is
the indivisible union of souls in
matrimonial consent.
Here we find the marriage of Joseph
and Mary as true and real as any. Granted,
their special relationship did not correspond to a typical marriage with respect to
conjugal relations. These, Saint Thomas says, Mary
and Joseph would have conditionally
consented to, insofar as this would have been part of God’s
plan for them. But realizing the unique mission God
had given them, their intent would have been no
other than living in an affectionate relationship expressed
in the purest form of love.
It was a communion of souls of the highest order. And it was because of such pure and holy love,
says Pope John Paul II, that God
so wonderfully used Mary and Joseph to reveal His intent to purify and sanctify
family life:
| We see
that at the beginning of the New Testament, as at the beginning of the Old, there is a
married couple. But whereas Adam and Eve were the source of evil which was unleashed on
the world, Joseph and Mary are the summit from which holiness spreads all over the earth.
The Savior began the work of salvation by this virginal and holy union, wherein is
manifested his all-powerful will to purify and sanctify the family, that sanctuary of love
and cradle of life. (Guardian of the Redeemer, 7) |
 |
 |
| The first
family, Adam and Eve, were the source of evil which was unleashed on the world. |
The Holy
Family, Mary and Joseph, are the summit from which holiness spreads all over the earth. |
|
