Go To Joseph

Today, March 19, the Church celebrates the solemnity of the feast of St. Joseph, husband of Mary. I am giving this little tribute to him because I believe every Christian, even if you're not Catholic, should look up to St. Joseph as the perfect model, after Jesus and Mary, of how the Christian life should be lived. Not much is known about his life except from a few chapters in the gospel of Luke, that is why I recommend the book Saint Joseph As Seen by Mystics and Historians for those who want to get acquainted with St. Joseph's life.

In St. Joseph, I find that "authentic manhood" can be fully integrated with holiness as opposed to our culture which teaches us "machismo" with an assumptive attitude that virility, courage, strength, and entitlement to dominate are attributes of real masculinity. Not Joseph. St. Joseph's manhood is anchored in loving service to Jesus and faithfulness to his marital vows with Mary. Also, people struggling with SSA (same sex attraction) who have father issues should also consider making St. Joseph their spiritual father (next to our Heavenly Father).

Below is an excerpt from the book I mentioned above about St. Joseph's power of intercession and his role as a patron of dying Christians.

The Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas teaches, that God has been pleased to give some saints a special power to protect under certain peculiar necessities, and others He has endowed with gifts of various kinds; but to St. Joseph He has been more generous - He has made him, as it were, His plenipotentiary, His treasurer-general, that he may have it in his power to assist and relieve every description of person, whatever may be his necessity.

The other saints, it is true, have great power, but only to a certain extent. They intercede and supplicate as dependants, but they do not rule as masters; whereas St. Joseph, to whom at Nazareth Jesus and Mary had lived submissive, as being the father of One and husband to the Other, now that he dwells in the House of God, where his titles, far from being obscured, shine out with incomparable brilliancy, may doubtless obtain all he desires from the King, his Son, and the Queen, his Spouse. His influence with Both is unbounded, and as Gerson says, "he rather commands than supplicates." Hence it may be seen, how powerful is the intercession of St. Joseph!

As the sentence of death has been pronounced on all, without exception, it follows that all and each, without exception, should endeavor to secure the interest and friendship of him who is all-powerful in procuring every assistance for his clients at that awful and decisive hour, to enable them to die happily. If a person engages in a lawsuit, on the event of which depends an immense gain or utter ruin, does he not call in the aid of some eminent lawyer, of one whose zeal for his interest he may safely depend?

Now every Christian at the hour of death, is about to hear an irrevocable sentence pronounced upon him, upon which will depend his eternal life or death, the rage and temptations of the devil at that critical moment - the remembrance of past sins - the uncertainty as to the real state of one's soul at that awful moment - the terror of the future - all combine in disputing, as it were, his claim to the Kingdom of Heaven, and in torturing his spirit with the dread apprehension of being condemned to the eternal loss of that God, Who loved him even so well as to die for him, Who alone can make him happy - to that Hell of fire where the worm dieth not, and the fire is never extinguished!

Why not, at that critical moment, call on some saint to plead his cause, and to obtain a favorable sentence for him at that awful tribunal, whence there is no appeal, should he once have the misfortune to be condemned? Who is there better qualified to perform this charitable office than St. Joseph? He is acknowledged by all Christendom to be the special advocate of dying Christians; whence it is that congregations have been everywhere established and altars raised in his name, and that the feast of his blessed death is celebrated in many places.

Among the many motives for which St. Joseph has been constituted the particular patron of dying persons in preference to other saints, there are three which more especially engage us to consider him as such: 1st, St. Joseph is the adopted father of our Judge, whereas the other saints are only His friends; 2nd, his power is more formidable to the devils: 3rd, his death was the most singularly privileged, and the happiest ever recorded in the annals of mankind.

(Source: pp 393-396 Saint Joseph As Seen by Mystics and Historians)