Saint Joseph the Resourceful Man of God

By Thomas McKenna

It’s hard to think of a more marvelous saint than the foster father of Jesus, Saint Joseph. The Virgin Mary’s holiness, of course, surpasses that of all God’s creatures – human and angelic, but Joseph was placed at her side as a truly fitting counterpart to Our Lady’s glorious virtue and goodness.

Some artists and devotional writers (as well as quite a few saints) present an overly pious image of Saint Joseph that ends up softening his vital masculinity. Joseph was vital if he was anything: strong, intelligent, profoundly faithful in all the ways of his religion, and tested in human virtue to the core.

God would not have chosen a man of lesser character than this for the purpose of raising His Son. He would not have united in marriage to the purest creature in heaven and on earth a man who would fail the test of integrity in any area of life or faith.

Intelligence with Holiness

Just think of the intelligence of this man whose religious obligation it was to teach the Hebrew scriptures to the Word Incarnate Himself! What must it have been like to see Jesus in His human nature absorb the Hebrew language like a master rabbi and investigate deeply into the mysteries of the Old Testament? We see Jesus in the Temple at twelve years of age teaching the teachers of Israel, fully endowed at that point with all the human knowledge of the faith of His people. Much of that was Joseph’s doing, whose task it was to educate the sacred humanity and human intellect of the Messiah.

Did Joseph himself have the scriptures memorized? We don’t know, but he certainly must have known them as well as any rabbi. Did Joseph have an awareness of all the history of his people and all the stories that were Israel’s legacy? This goes without saying. The father was the source of oral tradition for his Son and had to hand them on faithfully and accurately.

At a certain point in his task of teaching the boy Jesus, the Disciple surpassed His teacher. Joseph then became the learner. What a paradoxical moment that must have been! But Joseph knew the reality of Who he was teaching, and it was a natural transition for him to then sit at the feat of One who was the very repository of divine Wisdom.

Practical Holiness

We are told by Scripture that Joseph was a worker, a carpenter or a skilled laborer, which was his means of sustaining his family. Joseph’s intelligence was thus not just theoretical or abstract but eminently practical. He knew how to do things, how to fix things, how to make things, how to solve problems and apply real solutions to worldly dilemmas.

When it came to the kind of resourcefulness that real men of the world exercise in difficult situations, Joseph was exceptional. Would you be able to get up in the middle of the night and run off to another country with your family like Joseph did? This unadorned fact of scripture indicates that Joseph had a remarkable sense of ingenuity and a full set of practical capacities that were only surpassed by his obedience to divine grace.

An Extraordinary Gift

This man, Joseph the intelligent, was an extraordinary gift of God in every way. We are blind to so many of the details of his life because Scripture doesn’t supply them, but our hope remains firm that one day we shall meet the blessed Joseph face-to-face in the kingdom of heaven where we will sit at his feet like little Jesus did, and he will fill in all the marvelous details of the life of the Savior and His holy Mother that are hidden from us in time.

For that we pray, and in the meantime, we turn to Joseph for assistance in all things that concern us and our families. Joseph cannot be deaf to anyone who belongs to his Son. We must ask him to get us through this valley of tears and bring us to the Throne of Grace where he will place us in the company of the King and Queen of all hearts – you know, his family.

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Thomas McKenna is President of Catholic Action for Faith & Family. Please join Catholic Action for the final few days of their St. Joseph Novena and learn more about their efforts to defend and spread the Catholic faith.