The Feast of St. Joseph; in the special Year of St. Joseph; and also the feast day of our brother Joseph! Today then is a very special occasion, enriched by the special Indulgence and other spiritual favours proclaimed by the Holy See for all who honour or pray to St. Joseph during this year. Here at Pluscarden we’re blessed to have our little shrine of the sleeping St. Joseph. Our brethren pass this image many times every day, and even if we give it only a passing glance, we always as a result feel somehow consoled, cheered, calmed, refreshed, reassured, encouraged.
St. Joseph, famously, was a man of silence. Allow me to mention how, for the first time in my life, I was recently struck by a notable and eloquent silence of Our Lord. The scene is the Galilaean ministry, as narrated, with very slight verbal differences, by SS. Matthew, Mark and Luke (Mt 12:46; Mk 3:32, Lk 8:19). Jesus is preaching in a house, and someone announces the presence outside of his mother and brethren. Jesus responds by pointing to the disciples who surround him. Here, he says, are my Mother and Brethren! Whoever does the will of my Father in Heaven is my brother, and sister, and Mother.
This is strong doctrine, and we believe it. If we follow Jesus, in faith and love, we are thereby brought into close relationship with him; we become members, as it were, of his family; members indeed of his Body; we bear him in our own lives, and in doing so we do the will of God the Father, and live in communion with him. Please note, though, that Jesus does not say here that we will become his father. He wouldn’t ever say that, because only God is his Father. By definition Jesus is the Son of God. His whole life and mission are carried out in relation to his heavenly Father: he is ever turned towards his Father (cf. John 1:1). But surely here, precisely by not being mentioned, the outstanding privilege of St. Joseph is brought into extreme relief! Of all the human race, Joseph alone bore the title father of Jesus. So for Jesus, St. Joseph was the human image or reflection or representation of God the Father. When the child Jesus cried out Abba! Father! he addressed, indifferently, either God or St. Joseph. What, though, of the humility and hiddenness of St. Joseph? Something of the mystery of God is here too. God is everywhere manifest in his effects, but he remains nevertheless always invisible to us. He forces himself on no one. And he reveals his attitude towards the human race above all through the Cross of Christ, by which, in the words of St. Paul, power is made perfect through weakness (2 Cor 12:9).
If St. Joseph stood as father to Jesus, so he does also to us. Not only was St. Joseph the best of all human fathers, the perfect husband, the greatest teacher and guide and model there has ever been. Joseph also reliably and worthily pointed Jesus towards God, and specifically towards God as Father; and he does the same for us. No wonder that he is now called Patron of the Universal Church. No wonder also that we are strongly encouraged to turn to him for the great graces we most want and need. To mention a few: intimate and abiding friendship with Jesus and Mary. Docility to the Holy Spirit. Serene but also bold confidence and trust in God. Purity of heart, and chastity of body. A permanent attitude of adoration in God’s presence. Complete openness to God’s guidance, together with perfect contentment in accepting God’s will, even when that seems difficult and hard, and beyond our ability to understand. Fidelity to grace, fidelity to prayer, fidelity to the duties of our state of life, to our work, and to our rest. St. Joseph is well placed to teach us these things.
But I wonder. Could it be that in one crucial respect, we are better off than St. Joseph ever was in his earthly life? He is described in St. Matthew’s Gospel as a just man (1:19). According to the law, then, Joseph was perfectly, outstandingly just; with St. John the Baptist the best of ancient Judaism, and of all the human race before the coming of Christ. But we know, especially from St. Paul, that we can only be accepted as truly just before God - we can only be justified - as a result of the reconciling death of Christ (cf. e.g. Rm 5:9-10). And St. Joseph died before that happened. So St. Joseph was never baptised; he did not receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit; he never assisted at the Holy Eucharist, nor did he ever receive Holy Communion.
We who have received these gifts would do well to reflect on the outstanding privilege we have in them. St. Joseph enjoyed an intimacy with Jesus parallelled by no one apart from the Blessed Virgin herself. But Jesus now lives not only with us, but in us: so much so that his life in principle is now ours, and ours is his (cf. Gal 2:20). St. Joseph used habitually to pray to God with Jesus. But our prayer is now made through Jesus, our great High Priest, and in Jesus, our risen Lord and Saviour, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us. St. Joseph inherited King David’s title of Son of God, and both member and leader of God’s holy People. But we, through the power of the Paschal Mystery, have received in Christ the grace of divine adoption. God the Father now looks on us, the baptised, as he looks on his eternal Son made man. The blood of Jesus has washed away all our sins, and already our eternal inheritance of heavenly joy awaits us.
If St. Joseph did not receive these graces in his life time, he certainly enjoys all their fruits now, and he directs his prayer towards us, that we may lose nothing of the grace we have received. May St. Joseph then intercede for all of us today, and this year, and every day for the rest of our lives: that we may be able to live as befits our dignity as adopted sons of God; that we may live the Holy Eucharist as we are called to do; that we may manifest its fruits through lives of holiness. And through St. Joseph’s powerful intercession, may we come to understand, and to enter, ever more and more, the love of God, and the love that burns in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the love that fills the Immaculate Heart of Mary, so that our own hearts also may be set on fire with this same transforming love, and may abide in it forever.