What It Means To Be A Real Man!

Fathers, Husbands and All Boys and Men:

Take a lesson from St. Joseph!

Let’s take a look at this remarkable saint!

He is the silent saint! The Gospel does not record one spoken word of St. Joseph, nevertheless, what this great saint did in his life for God speaks volumes.

St. Matthew’s Gospel describes St. Joseph as being an upright man. This simply means that he lived by God's standard, keeping the commandments and emulating God's love.

St. Joseph was obedient to God without question and demonstrated great faith! Following what must have been devastating news, St. Joseph unquestioningly fulfilled the task set before him by God in marrying our Blessed Mother and raising Jesus as his own!

St. Joseph courageously led Jesus and Mary to safety when instructed to do so, and provided for them by working hard without complaint!

St. Joseph was presented with the most awesome responsibility! He was entrusted with the spiritual and physical well being of our Blessed Mother and Jesus! We are also entrusted by God with the spiritual and physical well being of our wives and children!

What some saints have said about St. Joseph:

St. Bernardine of Siena (d. 1444) preached, "He was chosen by the eternal Father as the trustworthy guardian and protector of His greatest treasures, namely, His divine Son and Mary, Joseph's wife. He carried out this vocation with complete fidelity until at last God called him, saying, 'Good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord.”

St. Teresa of Avila (d. 1582) said, "I took St. Joseph as my advocate and protector, and recommended myself very earnestly to him. He came to my help in the most visible manner. This loving father of my soul, this beloved protector, hastened to pull me out of the state in which my body was languishing, just as he snatched me away from greater dangers of another nature which were jeopardizing my honor and my eternal salvation! For my happiness to be complete, he has always answered my prayers beyond what I had asked and hoped for. I do not remember even now that I have ever asked anything of him which he has failed to grant. I am astonished at the great favors which God has bestowed on me through this blessed saint, and at the perils from which He has freed me, both in body and in soul."

Popes through the ages of the Church have also recognized the importance of St. Joseph:

Pope Pius IX declared him the Patron of the Catholic Church (1870).

Pope Leo XIII in "Quamquam Pluries" (1889) wrote, "Joseph was the guardian, the administrator and the legitimate and natural defender of the divine household of which he was the head. It was thus natural and very worthy of St. Joseph that, as he supported in another era all the needs of the Family of Nazareth which he wrapped in his holy protection, he now covers with his heavenly patronage and defends the Church of Jesus Christ."

Pope John Paul II in Redemptoris Custos (1989) exhorted the faithful to look to St. Joseph in our troubled age: "This patronage must be invoked, and it is always necessary for the Church, not only to defend it against dangers ceaselessly cropping up, but also and above all to support it in those fearful efforts at evangelizing the world, and spreading the new evangelization among nations where the Christian religion and life were formerly the most flourishing, but are now put to a difficult test.... May St. Joseph become for all a singular master in the service of the saving mission of Christ that is incumbent on each and every one of us in the Church: To spouses, to parents, to those who live by the work of their hands or by any other work, to persons called to the contemplative life as well as to those called to the apostolate."

Pope John XXIII on Nov. 13, 1962 ordered St. Joseph's name inserted into the Roman Canon (Eucharistic Prayer I), a proper recognition for the Guardian of the Universal Church. Moreover, St. Joseph's feast day of March 19 is a solemnity and traditionally a holy day of obligation throughout the universal Church (Code Canon Law, No. 1246); however, the United States was granted an exemption from the requirement at the request of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore (1884) because of the difficulty of observing holy days in a non-Catholic environment.

Pope Pius XII, in 1955, established the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker on May 1 to present St. Joseph as the exemplar of all working men and to focus on the true dignity of human labor in contrast to the "May Day" celebrations of communist countries.

Some material in this post was borrowed from an article entitled St. Joseph: The Silent Figure, writen by Fr. William Saunders, which may be found on the link to the web page below and which was obtained with permission from the Arlington Catholic Herald - http://catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0410.html

Father William Saunders is dean of the Notre Dame Graduate School of Christendom College and pastor of Our Lady of Hope Parish in Sterling, Virginia. The above article is a "Straight Answers" column he wrote for the Arlington Catholic Herald. Father Saunders is also the author of Straight Answers, a book based on 100 of his columns and published by Cathedral Press in Baltimore.