From the Pastor’s Desk:
On December 8, 2020, Pope Francis issued the apostolic letter Patris Corde proclaiming a Holy Year in honor of St. Joseph. He called upon the Church to follow Joseph’s powerful example of quiet obedience, courage and tenderness and to pray to him for the “grace of graces: our conversion”.
In the life of the Church, the devotion to St. Joseph did not truly begin until the 16th century, and his title as Patron of the Universal Church. There is not much to be seen of St. Joseph in the Gospels. They do not record a single sentence or word spoken by him. Mark’s Gospel does not even mention St. Joseph. In John’s Gospel he gets two little lines. In the opening chapters of Matthew and Luke he is seen only briefly. Perhaps the reason is that so much emphasis was placed upon the virginity of Mary. It was with Joseph that Christ grew into a boy, a teenager, a man. Joseph played an important part in the raising of Jesus.
In the 5th century, St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom emphasized Joseph’s role in God’s plan and expanded upon the Gospels few lines concerning him. St. Joseph began to be seen in prayer books beginning in the 9th century. In the late Middle Ages, St. Bernardine of Siena and others began to propose Joseph as a model for men to imitate, especially husbands and fathers.
It was here in the new world that the devotion to St. Joseph began to take root and spread. Perhaps one of the reasons for the spread of the devotion was European diseases. They ravaged the native populations, and conquistadores of South and Central America, along with the Southwestern area of our country had children with native women, but took little care of their offspring. The Franciscan missionaries introduced devotion to St. Joseph in order to give these thousands of children a fatherly presence in their lives. By the late 16th century, images of St. Joseph was found in the art all through the areas where Spanish Franciscan missionaries built missions.
St Joseph was the man chosen by God to guide and protect the beginnings of the history of redemption. It was through the actions of Joseph that God saved His Son and the Blessed Virgin Mary from King Herod. Jesus the God of all creation came into this world as a tiny, baby boy. Joseph defended, protected and cared for the Son of God. During this Holy Year, place yourself in the loving hands that provided for the Son of God.