The Chosen Provider for Jesus

Our family has a great devotion to today's saint.  We have often asked him to intercede on our behalf, especially when moving, buying and selling homes, looking for work and other times of transitions in our life.  Of the many churches we have known as our parish church over the years, many have been dedicated to St. Joseph as well or the priest was named Joseph. St. Joseph seems to be a part of our lives and we like it that way!

painted by
another mother 2015

St. Joseph

Feast day: March 19

According to an Apocryphal account (uncanonical Gospel) Joseph's birth is 90 BC in Bethlehem and his death is July 20, AD 18 in Nazareth.

Patron of the Universal Church, unborn children, fathers, workers, travelers, immigrants, and a happy death

Everything we know about the husband of Mary and the foster father of Jesus comes from the Gospels (Matthew and Luke).

• We know he was a carpenter, a working man (Matthew 13:55).
• 
  
• He wasn't rich for when he took Jesus to the Temple to be circumcised and Mary to be purified he offered the sacrifice of two turtledoves or a pair of pigeons, allowed only for those who could not afford a lamb (Luke 2:24).
• 
  
• His descent from David, the greatest king of Israel is shown in his genealogy (Matthew 1:1-16 and Luke 3:23-38).  Joseph is also greeted by the angel Gabriel as "son of David," a royal title used also for Jesus (Matthew 1:20).
• 
  
• We know Joseph was a compassionate, caring man. When he discovered Mary was pregnant after they had been betrothed, he knew the child was not his but was as yet unaware that she was carrying the Son of God. He knew women accused of adultery could be stoned to death, so he resolved to send her away quietly (Matthew 1:19)
• 
  
• When the angel came again to tell him that his family was in danger, he immediately left everything he owned, all his family and friends, and fled to a strange country with his young wife and the baby. He waited in Egypt without question until the angel told him it was safe to go back (Matthew 2:13-23).
• 
  
• We know Joseph loved Jesus.  When Jesus stayed in the Temple we are told Joseph (along with Mary) searched with great anxiety for three days for him (Luke 2:48). We also know that Joseph treated Jesus as his own son for over and over the people of Nazareth say of Jesus, "Is this not the son of Joseph?" (Luke 4:22)

Since Joseph does not appear in Jesus' public life, at his death, or resurrection, many historians believe Joseph probably had died before Jesus entered public ministry.

It would be nice to know more about Joseph, but the Gospel of Matthew has left us with the most important knowledge of who he was -- "a righteous man" (Matthew 1:18).