Feast day of St. Joseph
Two Days after St. Patrick’s Day, when everyone is Irish, the Church celebrates the feast of St. Joseph, the foster father of Jesus and husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Although St. Joseph is one of the critical human figures of salvation, little is written about him in historical texts. He is mentioned in the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke but not named in the Gospel of Mark. John’s Gospel only references him by calling Jesus ‘the son of Joseph”.
The Daily Roman Missal describes St. Joseph as “the second greatest saint—second only to the Blessed Virgin Mary—because of his humility and closeness to Christ as his foster father.” The faithful are well acquainted with God communicating with Joseph through a dream not to divorce Mary after she was pregnant with Jesus. Being a righteous man, Joseph did not want to expose her to shame, so he decided to divorce he quietly. The angel in his dream reassured him not to be afraid, and when he woke, he took her as his wife.
When the Magi visiting the newborn King departed, an angel appeared to St. Joseph in a dream because Herod wanted to kill Jesus. “’ Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.’ Joseph rose, took the child and his mother by night, and departed for Egypt.” When Herod finally died, Joseph was visited by an angel in another dream, telling him to go back to Israel and settle in Nazareth. The last time Joseph is mentioned in scripture is an oblique reference when his parents found the boy Jesus, who was missing, in the temple. The rest of St. Joseph’s life beyond that point is unknown.
What we can piece together from other scriptural accounts is that St. Joseph was undoubtedly a village carpenter. Throughout Jesus’ boyhood and adolescence, he was taught the woodworking trade by him. A carpenter was not wealthy during those times and was viewed as a modest profession. Although carpenters were not of rank, their skills were highly sought after. The lack of wood in the Holy Land restricted what could be built; high on the priority list was the construction of farm tools, furniture, windows, and doors. Perhaps in Jesus’ younger days, he helped create some of these necessities, which is fascinating because the lack of tools made the craftsman all the more skilled.
Very few people know a carpenter’s tools and techniques, which are mentioned in the Book of Isaiah, probably because the tradesman was instrumental in rebuilding the Temple after its destruction. Regardless, a carpenter had only a string, scribe, compass, and scraping tools to create things from wood. But what is curious is Isaiah concludes his section on woodworkers with the sentence, “Making it a copy of a man, human display, enthroned in a shrine.” This cryptic portrayal is a way of saying that human beings were created in the image of God, but in the case of a skilled carpenter, gods are made in the image of human beings. The skilled carpenter mimicked how God created, taking from nothing and producing something good and valuable.
The symbolism is remarkable. Joseph and Jesus were part of an ancient tradition of artistry to fashion items that benefited their neighbors and enhanced their worship of God. There can be no coincidence that St. Joseph was a carpenter, nor a coincidence that Jesus’ early years were spent learning the trade if we are to take the instructions of Isaiah seriously. God’s plan of salvation is a complicated intertwining of human and divine cooperation.
In hindsight, the plan of salvation, even in the smallest detail, reveals St. Joseph was not only from the house of David but also a carpenter, a fact which is not incidental. The interpretation of a carpenter in Isaiah, whereby human beings can make something so beautiful that it resembles a god, is the first clue as to the identity of this little boy Jesus will become.
The Son of God, always present with the Father, was incarnated in Mary’s womb and did precisely the same thing: God became the image of the human being. It can be no coincidence that Jesus grew in knowledge and stature by learning the trade of his foster father, Joseph. Jesus’ humble birth through his modest work with wood perhaps fills in some gaps in the early life of Jesus and St. Joseph. Unlike being born into royalty, God chose a modest life to show his great power.
Today, we honor and pray to St. Joseph, entrusted with the beginnings of the mystery of human salvation and faithfully cared for it. May we, like him and all who give glory and honor to God by using their time and talents as conveyors of God’s love in our time, watch over us in our daily labors.