By Clement Harrold
March 20, 2025
Recent times have seen a new outpouring of devotion to St. Joseph, the chaste spouse of Mary and foster father of Jesus. In 1870, Blessed Pius IX declared Joseph to be Patron of the Catholic Church. In 1955, Pope Pius XII adopted May 1 as the official Feast of St. Joseph the Worker.
St. John XXIII added Joseph’s name to the Roman Canon, and St. John Paul II hailed him as the “Guardian of the Redeemer.” More recently, Pope Francis penned the apostolic letter Patris Corde (“With a Father’s Heart”), written on the 150th anniversary of St. Joseph being made Patron of the Universal Church.
As the Church continues to grow in her appreciation for St. Joseph, it’s worth taking some time to consider the places where he appears in Scripture, and what these can tell us about the life and virtues of this extraordinary saint.
1. He was from the royal line of David.
St. Matthew (see Mt 1:3-6) and St. Luke (see Lk 3:31-33) both describe Joseph as being a descendant of King David from the line of Judah. When an angel appears in a dream to exhort Joseph not to divorce his wife Mary, the angel tells Joseph to have courage by invoking his royal pedigree: “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife” (Mt 1:20).
2. His life was marked by silence.
Famously, the Gospels never record Joseph saying a single word. St. John Paul II noted that this silence has “its own special eloquence” that “reveals in a special way the inner portrait of the man.” In particular, the pope argues, the silence of Joseph suggests that all his actions were characterized by “an aura of deep contemplation.”
3. He was a devout observer of the Mosaic Law.
The Gospels describe Joseph as “a just man” (Mt 1:19), meaning one who took God’s law seriously. This is corroborated not only in the fact that the Holy Family “went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover” (Lk 2:41), but also in Joseph and Mary’s decision to present Jesus in the Temple forty days after His birth. Since the Mosaic Law nowhere demanded that this ritual take place inside the Temple, the Holy Family was being extra devout by traveling to Jerusalem for the occasion.
4. He received multiple dreams from angels.
St. Matthew’s Gospel records an angel visiting Joseph in a dream on no less than three occasions: encouraging him not to divorce Mary (see Mt 1:20), warning him to flee with his family to Egypt in the middle of the night (see Mt 2:13); and instructing him to return to Israel after Herod’s death (see Mt 2:19-20). Joseph then receives a fourth dream warning him not to take his family back to Judea as he had planned, prompting him to head north to Galilee instead (see Mt 2:22). St. Matthew does not tell us whether this fourth dream came from an angel or directly from God.
5. He was probably poor.
One of the titles which make up the Litany of St. Joseph is “Lover of Poverty.” While we don’t know exactly what Joseph’s financial status would have been as a tekton, or carpenter (Mt 13:55), we do know that when he and Mary bring the baby Jesus to the Temple, the offering they make—“two turtledoves or two young pigeons” (Lk 2:24)—is the offering the Law prescribed for families who could not afford to sacrifice a lamb (see Lev 12:8).
6. He lived at least until Jesus was a teenager.
Part of what makes St. Luke’s account of the finding of Jesus in the Temple so fascinating is that it shows us that Joseph was still alive when Jesus was twelve years old (see Lk 2:42) and for some time after that (see Lk 2:51). This tells us Joseph was with Jesus throughout much of the “hidden years” which the Holy Family spent in Nazareth. Catholic tradition holds that Joseph died peacefully in the arms of Jesus and Mary sometime before Jesus began His public ministry.
7. His life was prefigured in the Old Testament.
The story of Joseph in the Old Testament foreshadows that of St. Joseph in the New Testament. Both Josephs had a father named Jacob (see Matt 1:15); both left their homes and went to Egypt; both had a special ability to interpret dreams; both were known for their chastity; and both experienced great poverty and suffering without complaint. Even more strikingly, both Josephs were responsible for feeding the whole world: just as the first Joseph was made the Pharaoh’s right-hand man and provided grain for all peoples when famine hit, so the second Joseph was made the father of the Son of God, and to him was entrusted the care of the One who would become the Bread of Life for all men.
8. He realized Mary would have to face great suffering without him.
When Joseph and Mary bring the baby Jesus to the Temple forty days after His birth, they are met by the devout Simeon who takes Jesus in his arms and blesses God with the famous words of the Nunc dimittis. St. Luke tells us that Jesus’s “father and his mother marveled at what was said about him” (Lk 2:33). Simeon then proceeds to offer a prophecy directed exclusively at Mary, even though Joseph is standing right beside her: “and a sword will pierce through your own soul also” (Lk 2:35). We might wonder how many times Joseph remembered this scene in later years when his health began to fail and he realized he would not be there to support his spouse and Son through their greatest trial.
9. He experienced what it’s like to feel God’s absence.
For those of us who have ever felt distant from God, Joseph and Mary’s experience of losing their Child for three days is a reminder that they know our pain, for they have in some sense tasted it. When St. Luke describes how Joseph and Mary searched “anxiously” (Lk 2:48) for their Son, the only other place this word appears in his Gospel is in his description of the rich man’s agony in Hades (see Lk 16:24-25). The implication is startling: for Jesus’s parents, those three days of searching were hell on earth. Even though they commit no sin in this episode, still their experience of having the divine life removed from their midst offers them a personal insight into the desolation of sinners everywhere.
10. He was Jesus’s main image of what fatherhood looks like.
One of the Christological heresies rejected by the early Church was Apollinarism, which held that Jesus did not have a human mind. Against her detractors, the Church insisted that Jesus was not only fully divine, but also fully human. Since Jesus had a true human mind, Joseph would have served as His main mental image for what fatherhood looks like. Hence whenever Jesus prayed to His heavenly Father throughout His life—including when He cried out from the Cross, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!” (Lk 23:46)—in His human imagination he probably thought of His human father, Joseph, who had always been for Him such a beautiful reflection of the divine fatherhood.
Ite Ad Joseph! (“Go to Joseph!”)
The fact that all four Gospels refer to Jesus as the son of Joseph (see Mt 13:55; Mk 6:3; Lk 4:22; Jn 6:42) should inspire us to deepen our devotion to this unique saint who has so much to teach us about the heart of God the Father. Historically, many of the great saints of the Western Church have adopted as their own the words of the Pharaoh from the Old Testament who made Joseph, the son of Jacob and Rachel, the viceroy over Egypt. When Egypt experienced a famine, the Pharaoh instructed all his subjects: “Go to Joseph; what he says to you, do” (Gen 41:55). This is surely good advice for all of us when it comes to imitating the new and greater St. Joseph: the Head of the Holy Family, the Terror of Demons, and the Protector of Holy Church.
Further Reading
Mike Aquilina, St. Joseph and His World (Scepter Publishers, 2020)
Donald Calloway, M.I.C., Consecration to St. Joseph: The Wonders of Our Spiritual Father (Marian Press, 2020)
Boniface Hicks, O.S.B., Through the Heart of St. Joseph (Emmaus Road Publishing, 2021)
About Clement Harrold
Clement Harrold earned his master’s degree in theology from the University of Notre Dame in 2024, and his bachelor’s from Franciscan University of Steubenville in 2021. His writings have appeared in First Things, Church Life Journal, Crisis Magazine, and the Washington Examiner.
