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Saint Paul
Friday, March 29, 2024

St. Joseph as a spiritual father

What does it mean to say that St. Joseph is our spiritual father? Well, for starters, it means that he does all the things any earthly father would do for those he protects and serves.

According to St. John Henry Newman, Joseph was given the title of “Father of the Son of God” because he was the spouse of Mary, ever Virgin. He was our Lord’s father because Jesus ever yielded to him in the obedience of a son. He was our Lord’s father because to him were entrusted, and by him were faithfully fulfilled, the duties of a father, in protecting him, giving him a home, sustaining and rearing him, and providing him with a trade.

Deborah Savage
Deborah Savage

Thus, Joseph will spiritually feed, shelter, clothe, educate, protect and correct us. This is his role as father — and as he did all these things for Jesus (with the exception of correction, of course), he will do all these things for us.

In his very fine book on St. Joseph, Father Donald Calloway uses a beautiful image in his chapter on Joseph as our spiritual father — that of Joseph’s cloak, which Joseph used to hide and protect his little family as they fled Herod’s persecution in the Flight to Egypt. We need but place ourselves under St. Joseph’s fatherly cloak, which has been depicted again and again throughout our tradition as the symbol of safety and fatherly protection. Just as Mary shields her children under her maternal mantle, St. Joseph stands ready to protect us under his fatherly cloak.

There is even a novena for this — the Holy Cloak Novena — which, unlike the usual nine-days, is a 30-day novena in honor of the 30 years St. Joseph is believed to have lived with Jesus. It is considered one of the most efficacious novenas in the treasures of the Church, intended to place us under the protective cloak of St. Joseph, who is ready to shelter us in the safety of the Church, clothe us with virtue, educate us in the interior life and protect us on our way back to our heavenly home.

In “Redemptoris Custos,” St. John Paul II’s 1989 apostolic letter on St. Joseph, the pope is intrigued by two aspects of Joseph’s life: his work and his silence. Joseph says nothing at his own annunciation — he has no probing questions for the angel or for anyone. He just gets to work. While Mary nurtures the child within her womb, this work that he takes up immediately becomes the beginning of Joseph’s way. His way is to work, to provide for his family, to protect them, to lead them out of danger and to safety.

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But it is a way of working, of doing, that is shrouded in silence. Joseph says nothing. Only watches and serves. And in the course of the events that follow, Joseph turns his human vocation into a superhuman oblation of self. He gives himself completely and without reserve to the service and mission of his family. As such, he is both a mirror of the way men and fathers have served the human community since time immemorial and the model for our men and our sons now. He reveals what is at the heart of the gift masculinity is to the world, the willingness to sacrifice himself for the good of others. As such, he becomes a guide as well for women and girls, who now know what a real man is and is meant to be.

St. Joseph was a just man, says St. John Paul II, and he will not fail us if we turn to him for help, no matter what our problem or difficulty. Like a good father, he stands ready to serve — if only we ask.

Savage is a member of the faculty at The St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, where she teaches philosophy and theology and also serves as the Director of the Masters in Pastoral Ministry Program. She is also the co-founder and director of the Siena Symposium for Women, Family, and Culture, an interdisciplinary think tank at St. Thomas organized to respond to John Paul II’s call for a new and explicitly Christian feminism. Savage adapted this essay from her April presentation for “Cuppa Joe,” a 10-part series on the spiritual wonders of St. Joseph.

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