Hello everyone!

During this time of Lent, we will have the opportunity to celebrate three main Solemnities. The first one is the Feast of St Patrick on the 17th of March, then the Solemnity of St Joseph, the Husband of Mary and the third one the Solemnity of the Anunciation of the Lord on the 25th of March.

This week, I would like to present something about the beautiful Solemnity of St Joseph, the Husband of the Virgin Mary.

The first appearance of Joseph is in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, often dated from around 80–90 AD. Each contains a genealogy of Jesus showing ancestry from King David, but through different sons; Matthew follows the major royal line from Solomon, while Luke traces another line back to Nathan, another son of David and Bathsheba. Consequently, all the names between David and Joseph are different.

In the Gospel of Luke, Joseph already lives in Nazareth, and Jesus is born in Bethlehem because Joseph and Mary have to travel there to be counted in a census. Subsequently, Jesus was born there.

The last time Joseph appears in person in any of the canonical Gospels is in the narrative of the Passover visit to the Temple in Jerusalem when Jesus is 12 years old, which is found only in Luke.

Joseph is not mentioned as being present at the Wedding at Cana at the beginning of Jesus’ mission, nor at the Passion at the end. If he had been present at the Crucifixion, he would under Jewish custom have been expected to take charge of Jesus’ body, but this role is instead performed by Joseph of Arimathea. Nor would Jesus have entrusted his mother to the care of John the Apostle if her husband had been alive.

Despite all this, it is understandable why the cult of St Joseph was relatively slow to develop in the early Church, and indeed for a long time after that. The early years were times of fierce persecution, and it was usually only the martyrs who were venerated. In addition, the theological focus during that period was on clarifying the trinitarian nature of God, and on trying to understand the mystery of how Jesus could be both God and man. And there was a focus, too, on the role of Our Lady as the Theotokos, or God-bearer. Even so, St Joseph was mentioned by some of the Church fathers, and from what they said it seems clear that there was devotion to St Joseph present in the Eastern Church.

In the West though, it developed quite late, and it was only in the twelfth century that a church was first dedicated to him, in Bologna. It was mainly through the influence of figures such as St Bernard of Clairvaux, St Thomas Aquinas, St Gertrude, and St Bridget of Sweden, along with the work of some religious orders, such as the Carmelites and the Dominicans, that devotion to him began to develop more widely. By the early

fifteenth century, a feast day in honor of St Joseph was celebrated in various dioceses in Western Europe, and his cult was strongly promoted by influential figures such as St Vincent Ferrer and St Bernadine of Siena, while Pope Sixtus IV (1471-84) approved a universal feast day for him in the Roman calendar, on 19th March.

As the cult of St Joseph grew, succeeding popes elevated the status of his feast progressively. And other feasts associated with him, for example celebrating his espousals to Our Lady, were also introduced. Under the influence of St Teresa of Avila, the reformed Carmelite Order chose him as their patron in 1621.

By the nineteenth century, devotion to St Joseph had become very widespread in Catholic circles, to the extent that, in 1847, Pope Pius IX, who was personally very devoted to the saint, extended the feast of his patronage to the whole Church. In 1870, he declared him the Patron and Guardian of the Universal Church and further raised the status of his feast day

Pope Leo XIII also strongly supported this devotion, and ended his encyclical on devotion to St Joseph, Quamquam pluries, issued in 1889, with these thoughts about his wonderful holiness: “No other saint . . . so nearly approaches that place of dignity which in the Mother of God is far above all created natures.” The Pope associated a special indulgenced prayer to St Joseph with this encyclical and ordered that it be added to the public recitation of the rosary during October. He also praised the practice of dedicating the month of March to St Joseph.

St Joseph, pray for us!