St. Joseph

We interrupt this Lent for a very special celebration – the Solemnity of St. Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Okay, perhaps many of us don’t think of this as the big “saint day” this week.  After all, how many were “wearin’ the green” on Monday?  The St. Patrick’s Day parade made the front pages of the newspaper, but today – meh!  Each year at Christmas, I get a New York Times Crossword Puzzle Calendar.  At the bottom of the page they note special holidays.  On Monday, of course, it said “St. Patrick’s Day.”  Today – nothing.

As I kid, I was well attuned to the relative disparity in mid-March celebrations.  My mom’s family was all Irish.  Her father had emigrated from Ireland, so St. Patrick’s Day was a major celebration.  Yet, St. Joseph was my patron saint and we never celebrated that at all.  My consolation was that I attended St. Joseph School in Endicott, New York.  My feast day was a day off from school!

Even in religious art, St. Joseph has often been relegated to the background.  In the early church, there was virtually no veneration of St. Joseph.  It was not until the sixteenth century that his feast day was celebrated throughout the Church.  And yet, it is right and just that we pull out the liturgical stops today and celebrate this day with great solemnity, for humble St. Joseph played a vital role in our salvation.

When the Mary says yes to the God’s invitation, she places herself in mortal jeopardy.  In the Jewish law, an unmarried woman who became pregnant was subject to stoning.  While Joseph, who was a righteous man, may have spared her from that fate by his plan to quietly divorce her, she would have certainly been subjected to severe exclusion from society.  God had another idea.  Joseph was told to take Mary into his home as his wife – implicitly telling the world that this child was his, and that Mary and the child should be accorded proper respect and dignity.

In essence, Joseph’s humble obedience – his “yes” to God – was almost as crucial to our salvation as was Mary’s fiat.

We celebrate today to learn from Joseph’s humility, to learn from Joseph’s obedience, that oftentimes our own plans just aren’t good enough.   We pray with St. Joseph that we recognize God’s will in our life.  We pray with St. Joseph that we, like he, have the courage to say “yes” to God.

St. Joseph, pray for us.