Daily Excerpt: Saints I Know (Sula) - St. Joseph
The following excerpt comes from Saints I Know by Sula, Parish Cat at Old Mission. Appropriate for Caturday -- the book is "written" by a cat -- and for the Easter season.
Saint Joseph
This statue of St. Joseph can be found at the feet of one of
the statues of Mary in our Mission garden. I think that is the perfect place
for his statue because he always supported Mary, marrying her though she was a
pregnant virgin, and becoming the legal father of Jesus.
Joseph's first thought when he found out that Mary was
carrying a child he knew nothing about was not to marry her even though they
were betrothed. However, an angel came to him in a dream, revealed to him what
had happened, and told him to take Mary as his wife. He did.
Joseph was a carpenter (a worker) and raised Jesus as a
carpenter’s son. Today, we would say that they were part of the working class.
It makes me feel closer to Jesus, knowing that He did not come into this world
in glory and privilege but rather as a working guy like me, a working gal. No
wonder St. Joseph is the patron saint of workers. He knew all about them; he
was one himself—and so was his legal son.
St. Joseph protected Jesus as well as Mary. Not long after
Jesus was born, Herod learned about him from the magi who came to visit him in
the stable and decided to kill all boy children under two years of age because
he was afraid that Jesus, being called King of the Jews, would replace him, and
he did not want that. He liked his power, and he did not understand that
Jesus’s spiritual kingdom was very different from the political kingdom of the
Roman leaders. Angels in another dream informed Joseph of the pending massacre
and advised him to leave immediately for Egypt with his family. He did.
What can we learn from Joseph? Joseph did everything God
asked of him. He supported his family through very difficult times. People can
do that, too. Of course, doing as God asks can be difficult—and maybe we don’t
even want to do that. Certainly, Joseph did not want to get involved at all in
the beginning. Nonetheless, he did as he was asked, and God watched out for
him. So can we do as we are asked, and God will watch out for us, too. God gave
us a wonderful example of that in Joseph.
The gospels relay very little information about Joseph, but
they do make clear to us the most important information. For example, Joseph was
descended from David—an important fact because the prophet Isaiah in the Old
Testament predicted that the Messiah would come from the lineage of David. We
know that he and Mary took Jesus to the temple for Passover when Jesus was 12
or 13—and then panicked because they thought he had lost him, but Jesus was
still in the temple, preaching. We also know that he died sometime between then
and when Jesus turned 30 and began his adult ministry because no mention is
made of him at the wedding at Cana, and at the cross Jesus gives Mary to John
to care for. Joseph, by some counts, was over 90 when Jesus was born, so it
makes sense that he had died by the time Jesus was fully grown.
Pope Pius IX declared St. Joseph to be the patron saint and
protector of the Catholic Church, the way he was the protector of the Lord in
the form of Jesus. He is also the patron saint of the sick and the patron saint
of a good death. Clearly, he is a very important—and busy—saint!
For more excerpts from Saints I Know, click HERE.
For more posts about Sula and her books, click HERE.
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