From his earliest writings, Saint Josemaría describes Saint Joseph as a young man, perhaps a bit older than our Lady, but imbued with vigour and strength: “The Holy Patriarch was not an old man, but a young, strong, upright man, a great lover of loyalty, a man with fortitude. Holy Scripture defines him with a single word: just (see Mt 1:20-21). Joseph was a just man, a man filled with all the virtues, as was fitting for the one who was to be God’s protector on earth.”
Underlying these words is the conviction that God, on giving a vocation, gives the graces suitable to the one who receives it, and therefore he adorned Saint Joseph with all the gifts of nature and grace that made him a suitable spouse of our Lady and head of the Holy Family.
Saint Josemaría’s emphasis on the youthfulness of Joseph finds support in three fundamental reasons: in reading Sacred Scripture with common sense (which presents his espousal to our Lady as something normal, and the marriage of a young girl with an old man would not have been viewed as normal); in the communion of spirits proper to marriage (the love existing between them); and above all in the conviction that holy purity is not a question of age, but rather stems from love.
“I don’t agree with the traditional picture of St Joseph as an old man, even though it may have been prompted by a desire to emphasis the perpetual virginity of Mary. I see him as a strong young man, perhaps a few years older than our Lady, but in the prime of his life and work. You don’t have to wait to be old or lifeless to practice the virtue of chastity. Purity comes from love; and the strength and joy of youth are no obstacle for noble love. Joseph had a young heart and a young body when he married Mary, when he learned of the mystery of her divine motherhood, when he lived in her company, respecting the integrity God wished to give the world as one more sign that he had come to share the life of his creatures.”
For Saint Josemaría it was “unacceptable” to present Joseph as an old man for the purpose of silencing the “evil thinkers.” And it was equally unacceptable to doubt the truth of his marriage to our Lady, as well as to fail to take into consideration the love that existed between them.
The love between Saint Joseph and our Lady
Bishop Javier Echevarría is a valuable witness to how Saint Josemaría contemplated the relationship between Mary and Joseph, passing on his words addressed to Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico in 1970: “A family made up of an upright, hard-working young man; and a woman, hardly more than a girl: with a betrothal full of clean love, they find in their lives the fruit of God’s love for mankind. In her humility she says nothing. What a lesson for all of us, so ready as we are to boast about our achievements! He reacts with the refinement of an upright man – what a hard moment it must have been when he discovered that his wife, so holy, was expecting a child. And as he did not wish to stain her reputation; he remained silent, while thinking how to resolve things, until God’s light came to him, which he was no doubt asking for from the first moment. And without hesitation he accepts heaven’s plans.”
The authenticity of marriage brings with it the reality of conjugal love, the eagerness to spend life together and mutual self-giving; therefore it is only natural to view these features as very much a part of the marriage between Joseph and Mary. God added to that love the fruit of our Lady’s womb: the Eternal Son made man, who chose to be born into a human family.
As we have seen, Saint Josemaría takes it for granted that the marriage between Joseph and Mary is a true marriage. This leads him to reflect on the love existing between the two spouses: “Saint Joseph must have been young when he married our Lady, a woman who had just emerged from adolescence. Being young, he was pure, clean, and very chaste. And he was so precisely because of his love. Only by filling our heart with love can we be sure that it will not rebel and go off the track, but will remain faithful to the most pure love of God.”
For Saint Josemaría, love is the key to every person’s life, as it was in the life of Joseph. There we find the reason for his fortitude, his fidelity, his chastity. “Can you imagine the reaction of Saint Joseph, who loved our Lady so much and knew her spotless integrity? How much he would have suffered on seeing that she was expecting a child! Only the revelation of God through an Angel calmed him. He had sought a prudent solution: to not dishonour her, to leave without saying anything. But what sorrow, since he loved her with his whole soul. And imagine his joy when he knew that the fruit of her womb was the work of the Holy Spirit!”
Although he doesn’t focus on the reason for Joseph’s inner turmoil, Saint Josemaría suggests that it consisted in his “not seeing,” rather than in doubting the virtue of his spouse. He didn’t know what to do. “Joseph was a just man, a man filled with every virtue, as was proper to the one who was to be the protector of God on earth. At first he was troubled, when he discovered that his Immaculate Spouse was with child. He saw God’s hand in that fact, but he didn’t know how he should behave. In his uprightness, in order not to defame her, he thought of secretly taking leave of her.”
Joseph’s pain seems to be concentrated in the need to abandon his spouse. Saint Josemaría holds soberly to the New Testament text, reading it with faith and common sense. According to the text, the reason for Joseph’s concern is clear: his ignorance of what was happening, which the angel’s message dispelled. Joseph’s love and knowledge of Mary led him to think that in this event, which he did not understand, God was involved. Saint Josemaría suggests here what numerous exegetes have said: that Joseph’s doubt was not about the virtue of our Lady, but about how he should react, realising that something divine was involved.
Saint Josemaría never doubted the existence of an authentic conjugal love between the two. Moreover Joseph’s chastity is protected by that love, founded on faith: “His faith nurtured his love of God, who was fulfilling the promises made to Abraham, Jacob and Moses, and his affection for Mary his wife, and her Son. This faith, hope and love would further the great mission which God was beginning in the world through, among others, a carpenter in Galilee: the redemption of man.”
The fatherhood of Joseph
Saint Josemaría never wavered on how to express the fatherhood of Saint Joseph. From his earliest writings right to the end of his life, he called him the father of Jesus without any qualification. We can view his thought regarding the theology of Saint Joseph as inscribed within the coordinates of two Fathers of the Church: Saint John Chrysostom and Saint Augustine. From Saint John Chrysostom he cites a text that places on God’s lips these words: “Do not think that, since the conception of Christ was the work of the Holy Spirit, you are apart from this divine work. For even though it is true that you had no part in the generation, and that the Virgin remains intact; nevertheless, all that is related to fatherhood without adversely affecting the dignity of her virginity, I give all of this to you, just as I ask you to give him his name.”
The exercise of fatherhood towards Jesus is an essential part of a “mission” that filled Joseph’s entire life: “He had a divine mission: he lived with a dedicated soul; he dedicated himself entirely to the concerns of Jesus, sanctifying his ordinary life.” Here lies one of the main attractions that the Holy Patriarch exerted over Saint Josemaría: his total dedication to Jesus in “sanctifying ordinary life,” that is, in the exercise of the duties proper to his office and as a good father of a Jewish family of his epoch.
Saint Josemaría in Christ Is Passing By offers a long description of the paternal-filial relationship that existed between Saint Joseph and our Lord. It is a beautiful page, sober and pious, filled with attention to details: “The life of Jesus was, for Saint Joseph, a recurring discovery of his own vocation. We recalled earlier those first years full of contrasting circumstances: glorification and flight, the majesty of the wise men and the poverty of the manger, the song of the angels and the silence of mankind. When the moment comes to present the child in the temple, Joseph, who carries the modest offering of a pair of doves, sees how Simeon and Anna proclaim Jesus as the Messiah: ‘His father and mother listened with wonder’ (Lk 2:33) says Saint Luke. Later, when the child stays behind in Jerusalem, unknown to Mary and Joseph, and they find him again after three days’ search, the same evangelist tells us, ‘They were astonished’ (Lk 2:48). Joseph is surprised and astonished. God gradually reveals his plans to him, and he tries to understand them . . . Saint Joseph, more than anyone else before or since, learned from Jesus to be alert to recognise God’s wonders, to have his mind and heart awake.”
Here we have the interior life of Saint Joseph described as an authentic pilgrimage of faith, in a certain sense very similar to our Lady’s. Both of them, Mary and Joseph, discover God’s will little by little, and transform their first self-giving into a fidelity that mutually strengthens them. At the same time, in the exercise of his fatherhood, Joseph transmits to Jesus his profession as an artisan, his way of working and viewing the world: “But if Joseph learned from Jesus to live in a divine way, I would be bold enough to say that, humanly speaking, there was much he taught God’s Son . . . Joseph loved Jesus as a father loves his son and showed his love by giving him the best he had. Joseph, caring for the child as he had been commanded, made Jesus a craftsman, transmitting his own professional skill to him. So the neighbours of Nazareth will call Jesus both faber and fabri filius (Mk 6:3; Mt 13:55): the craftsman and the son of the craftsman. Jesus worked in Joseph’s workshop and by Joseph’s side. What must Joseph have been, how grace must have worked through him, that he should be able to fulfil this task of the human upbringing of the Son of God! For Jesus must have resembled Joseph: in his way of working, in the features of his character, in his way of speaking. Jesus’ realism, his eye for detail, the way he sat at table and broke bread, his preference for using everyday situations to give doctrine—all this reflects his childhood and the influence of Joseph.”
Here is a paradox that Saint Josemaría is very aware of. The One who is Wisdom Incarnate “learns” from a man the most basic things, including the skills of carpentry. Manifested in this paradox is the “sublime mystery” of the Incarnation and the truth of Joseph’s fatherhood. From his Mother, our Lord learned to speak and to walk; in the home presided over by Saint Joseph, he learned lessons of industrious and upright work. Mutual affection made Joseph and Jesus similar to each other in many things: “It’s not possible to ignore this sublime mystery: Jesus who is man, who speaks with the accent of a particular district of Israel, who resembles a carpenter called Joseph, is the Son of God. And who can teach God anything? But he is also truly man and lives a normal life: first, as a child, then as a boy helping in Joseph’s workshop, finally as a grown man in the prime of life. ‘Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and grace before God and men’ (Lk 2:52).”
- La escuela de José, p. 80.
- In Joseph’s Workshop, no. 40.
- To better “guarantee” our Lady’s virginity some apocryphal writers spoke of a previous marriage and presented Joseph as of an advanced age.
- Saint Josemaría, Notes from his personal prayer before Our Lady of Guadalupe, May 21, 1970; cited in Bishop Javier Echevarría, Letter, December 1, 1996 (AGP, P17, vol. 4, pp. 230-231).
- De la familia de José, p.134.
- Ibid., p. 138.
- La Escuela de José, p. 80.
- In Joseph’s Workshop, no. 42
- Saint John Chrysostom, In Mat., Hom. 4, 6: BAC 141, 70. See La escuela de José, pp. 80-81.
- La escuela de José, p. 81.
- In Joseph’s Workshop, no. 54.
- Ibid., no. 55.
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Ibid.