In every saint, a different page of Christ's inexhaustible wealth is fulfilled. This is related to the fact that individual saints are often invoked in various needs. An exceptional place among the saints belongs to Saint Joseph. His connection with Christ was, after Mary, the closest possible. Jesus was literally at the center of all his life and efforts. Therefore, his intercessions have such power and scope. Just as he was, during his life, the protector of the Holy Family, he is in glory the protector of the entire Church.
Concealment
Joseph is a saint who completely voluntarily remains a man in the shadow of Jesus and Mary. The only information we have about him comes from not very detailed passages in the gospels. But for Joseph, that "silence" and quietness is characteristic.
What is the mystery of Joseph's holiness?
Primarily in the complete surrender of any personal plans to God's will. For a mature man, who surely had some ideas about his life, it could not have been simple to completely give up his own plans. Joseph's entire life is a constant pulling away from established tracks. To be continually open to God's inspiration, to not settle down anywhere, to not seek any of his own plans.
Joseph is a figure from the Old Testament (cf. genealogy in St. Luke and Matthew). For the Jews, a large family, its material security, and a certain prosperity were evidence of God's blessing (cf. e.g., Ps 126, 127). Against this background, we must understand the greatness of Joseph's sacrifice. He had to embrace a completely different understanding of life. In a certain way, he actually "came out, separated himself" from his people, although he fully adheres to all traditions. He is a prefiguration of the fulfillment and transcending of the Old Testament. He keeps all the ordinances and commandments (cf. Lk 2), but at the same time, on his own existential level, he is constantly confronted with the fact that in the events he witnesses, they are transcended. Not some revolutionary upheaval, but quietly, in the life of Jesus Christ. Joseph is called to live fully in the present, without the claim to hide in established customs and without the claim to understand what the future will bring. Joseph's time is Jesus Christ. Joseph very likely was not a witness to any of Jesus's miracles. To fulfill God's will, he was led solely by complete trust.
Responsibility
But Joseph is not just someone who continually loses something and gives something up. Then he would not be a saint, but a resigning whiner. Joseph fundamentally feels that he receives much more for all this – love for Mary and Jesus. His life has meaning only in relation to them.
However, that does not mean that Joseph was a weak, submissive person in the background. On the contrary, he represents Jesus’s Father in the order of this world. He serves Him also with his paternal authority. Indeed, the profound mystery of human salvation, the mystery in which Mary had an inner share, is entrusted to the protection of a man – Joseph. God's word has a special way of being able to transform the world while also being completely silent and dependent on us. Joseph shows that for the salvation we receive as a gift, we are personally responsible. We also have Jesus – the Word of God in us, to protect Him from the attacks of ourselves and our surroundings. We are also responsible for Jesus's growth in us. We best serve Him with humble, i.e., truthful, daily service. We receive everything – and at the same time, we are responsible for everything. Christianity is certainly not a matter of unrealistic dreamers! Joseph exercised his authority over Jesus. However, it was a perfectly servant authority – it served the growth of Jesus Christ. Similarly, all fathers should understand their authority. Not to give it up, as is often the case today, but to take it up with full responsibility from God's hands.
Christ - The Meaning of Life
Joseph teaches us that the only fulfillment of our life is Jesus Christ. He teaches us to make Jesus the center of all our activities, the goal of all our efforts. Even the most ordinary daily activity has no meaning without being rooted in Christ. Joseph thus becomes a teacher of true unity between contemplation and activity. As such, he is invoked by consecrated persons. Even the often emphasized aspect of Joseph – the worker, who is nearly the only aspect of devotion to Saint Joseph that survives, is not merely a celebration of human work, but a celebration of the fact that this work only gains meaning when it is involved in Christ's work.
Joseph was actually an adorer of Jesus Christ all his life, he protected Him, and therefore he is a great intercessor for priests, devotees, and protectors of the sacramental Christ. The Eucharist, in which we receive Christ's body and blood, is soaked with the sweat of Joseph's hands and his tears, because from them Jesus's body grew and became strong. As the guardian of the Eucharistic Jesus Christ, Joseph is also invoked as a powerful protector against demons.
Silence
Joseph is a great example for us of silence and inner recollection – all those great things that happened before Jesus's birth, he kept to himself, clearly evidenced by the fact that Jesus's fellow citizens in Nazareth had no idea at the beginning of Jesus's public ministry about Jesus's conception. Thus: Joseph keeps such great things, which could perhaps justify his particular behavior in the eyes of the world, deep in his heart. He did not misuse God's word to elevate himself, to make himself more interesting. He allowed it to mature within him in complete trust in God. When we broadcast sensitive signs that God gives to each of us, we commodify them, and we have already received our reward.
Guardian of the Church
As the caring head of the Holy Family, Joseph allowed for the peaceful and quiet growth and development of Jesus Christ. What was entrusted to him, he justly protected. It is therefore logical that in the order of grace he protects the whole family of Jesus – the Church. She has often realized this in her history, and the veneration of Saint Joseph has been a very significant element of Western Christianity.
It began to spread more significantly at the beginning of the great threat to the Church in the late Middle Ages by Franciscan and Dominican preachers. At the Council of Constance, which worked to end the Western Schism, Chancellor of the University of Paris John Gerson proposed establishing a feast of Saint Joseph as a prefiguration of reconciliation. Saint Teresa of Jesus was a great devotee of Saint Joseph, who entrusted herself and her work of Carmelite reform to his protection.
She writes about it in her Life: “I chose as my intercessor and patron the glorious Saint Joseph, and I entrusted myself to him with enthusiasm. This father and protector helped me in the troubles I found myself in, and in many others far graver, in which it was about my honor and the salvation of my soul.
I clearly saw that his assistance was always greater than I could hope for. I do not recall ever asking him for any grace without receiving it immediately. And it is marvelous to remember the great favor with which the Lord lavished on me, and the dangers to my soul and body from which he freed me at the intercession of this blessed saint. Other saints, it seems, God has allowed to assist us in this or that need, whereas I have experienced that the intercession of Saint Joseph pertains to all. Thus, the Lord gives us to understand that just as he was submitted to him on earth, where he, as a guardian, could command him, so now in heaven he will do everything he is asked. … I have not met anyone who truly honored him and rendered him any service without growing in virtue. He helps immensely those who entrust themselves to him. For several years, I have always asked him on his feast for some grace, and I am always heard. And if my request is not entirely correct, he directs it to my greater good.”
Pope Urban VIII (17th century) includes the feast of Saint Joseph among the feasts dedicated to the entire Church. On December 8, 1870, Pius IX declared Saint Joseph the protector of the entire Church.
In modern times, however, veneration of Saint Joseph, like that of other saints, is declining. However, it does not seem that this brings us closer to Christ. Rather, the opposite is true. The saint is a magnificent work of God, an updating of Jesus's life, a re-presentation of one part of His inexhaustible mystery.
Guide on the Way to Christ
In some depictions of the Holy Family, a slightly older Jesus is seen being led by the hands of his parents. Let us allow Joseph to introduce Jesus to us as well. So that He may live in us with His hidden life, quiet, unobtrusive, surrendered, yet absolutely necessary for him to later appear, teach, suffer, and be glorified. Joseph raised Jesus for His great work, entrusted Him to the people at the moment of his death; it is not a coincidence that he is said to die at the time when Jesus begins His public ministry. (And it is irrelevant whether this is factually true. In legends, much more is about inner truth.) In us, too, God's word must grow in order to bear fruit, to participate in building the Church. This will happen only when we die to ourselves and let Jesus emerge from our shadow.
Petr Beneš
Excerpted from the magazine Amen 3/1998
with the kind permission of the publisher
