According to the Torah laws, St. Joseph could have had Mary stoned to death for infidelity cf. Deuteronomy If St. Joseph knew Mary was pregnant, did the town gossip circle also notice? One can only wonder what shame and hurt he must have felt. How his heart must have been broken! Nevertheless, the Angel of the Lord appeared to St. Joseph in a dream, revealed to him that Mary had conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, and commanded that he take Mary as his wife and Jesus as his own Son.
Without question or hesitation, St. Joseph did as the angel commanded. Here again, we see the important role of Joseph: He is to take Jesus as his own Son and to name him, thereby giving Him legal recognition and legal personhood. Please note that the foregoing understanding of the annunciation is the traditional one. Some individuals have speculated that St.
Joseph knew that Mary had conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and thereby felt unworthy, even afraid, to marry her and accept this responsibility; therefore, he decided to divorce her quietly. However, why then would the angel later tell St. Joseph in the dream that Mary had conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit?
The traditional understanding is still the best one. Joseph fulfilled his obligations courageously. Today, Catholics of all nations honour him. There are many stories about the miraculous intervention of Saint Joseph. One is a medieval account of how famine in Sicily was ended after a Novena to Saint Joseph. According to ancient tradition, Saint Joseph watches over and protects the Church. He is considered the model of perfect Christian life and the patron of a happy death.
When he first found out that she was with child, he did not realize how this child came about. But then an angel came to Joseph, and told him that the child Mary carried was the son of God, conceived by the Holy Spirit. He stayed with Mary after that. After Jesus was born, an angel came to him again to warn him and Mary about King Herod of Judaea and his plans for violence against Jesus. Joseph took Mary and Jesus and fled to Egypt to protect them. They came back to the Holy Land when an angel told him Herod had died.
So yeah, you can say that Joseph did a lot to protect Jesus. When Jesus stayed in the Temple we are told Joseph along with Mary searched with great anxiety for three days for him Luke We also know that Joseph treated Jesus as his own son for over and over the people of Nazareth say of Jesus, "Is this not the son of Joseph? We know Joseph respected God. He followed God's commands in handling the situation with Mary and going to Jerusalem to have Jesus circumcised and Mary purified after Jesus' birth.
We are told that he took his family to Jerusalem every year for Passover, something that could not have been easy for a working man. Since Joseph does not appear in Jesus' public life, at his death, or resurrection, many historians believe Joseph probably had died before Jesus entered public ministry. Joseph is the patron saint of the dying because, assuming he died before Jesus' public life, he died with Jesus and Mary close to him, the way we all would like to leave this earth.
Joseph is also patron saint of the Universal Church, families, fathers, expectant mothers pregnant women , travelers, immigrants, house sellers and buyers, craftsmen, engineers, and working people in general.
Joseph the Worker" to be celebrated on May 1. Many places and churches all over the world are named after St. Joseph, including the Spanish form, San Jose, which is the most commonly named place in the world. In art, Joseph is typically portrayed as an older man, with grey hair and a beard, often balding, sometimes appearing frail and a marginal figure next to Mary and Jesus, if not entirely in the background. Some statues of Joseph show his staff topped with flowers. Joseph is shown with the attributes of a carpenter's square or tools, the infant Jesus, his lily blossomed staff, two turtle doves, or a spikenard.
There is much we still wish we could know about Joseph -- exactly where and when he was born, how he spent his days, exactly when and how he died. But Scripture has left us with the most important knowledge: who he was -- "a righteous man" Matthew
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