I can remember the precise moment in which my devotion to Saint Joseph began. It was 2008. September. The Global Financial Crisis. We were feeling the effects of the economic instability, as was the rest of the country.
In my heart, at that moment, I felt that Saint Joseph wanted to be both provider and protector for his people in this crisis. I presented an idea to Sister Mary Mark, who was the publisher at the time. I wanted to write a small book: Saint Joseph—Help for Life’s Emergencies (Stories and Prayers), as both a comfort and a guide in distressing and uncertain times. She gave immediate approval, and I buried myself in all things “Joseph.” And I discovered in myself a growing warm devotion to the spouse of Mary and foster-father of Jesus—a man of trust and quiet faith.
There are many popular images of Saint Joseph: the statues we see in our parish churches, mosaics and images of Joseph as the father of Jesus, the one who received messages in his dreams and kept Mary and Jesus safe, and the one who taught Jesus carpentry in his workshop, and even a sleeping Saint Joseph, but I get ahead of myself.
What I began with was a book, a very old book. At our provincial house, we have a small museum of artifacts from the early days of our congregation in North America. One of these items has always fascinated me—a large book with scrappy, fading pages that were taped together, more than fifty years old, about—yes, you guessed it—Saint Joseph.
It is accompanied by a note from a woman explaining that she had obtained the book from one of our sisters in the 1940s and wanted to return it to us in the 1970s, since she thought someone else could benefit from it as much as she had. From the note, and from the worn pages themselves, it was clear that she was deeply grateful and had taken Saint Joseph as her protector and provider. The book had clearly been well loved and well used.
So I began my search for the loving care of Saint Joseph for his people there…in this one book…that had touched one life…for decades…. This protector of Jesus and Mary had brought the person who had read the book, not just the security of a house being sold or security in hard times, but the everlasting comfort of close union with his Son Jesus.
I asked Saint Joseph to guide me, to show me who he wanted to be for people today: fractured families, the suffering of immigration and war; so many growing up without a father; job loss and financial insecurity; people working two jobs just to make ends meet… These struggles are not new. Yet in 2008—and even today—they seem to press upon our lives with a particular urgency, a pain that does not easily let go. And so I began to wonder: who is Joseph for such a time as this?
The quiet protector. The faithful provider. The man who guarded a vulnerable family in a world that was not safe. These titles are the traditional roles we give Joseph.
New Ways to Get to Know Saint Joseph
But I began to think about Joseph—who one day was faced with the fact that his betrothed was pregnant—as the one who understands broken hearts, the one who turns to God for guidance when things are confused and dark.
He can be a second father for someone who has lost their own through death. Or maybe they never knew their father. Perhaps after her husband’s death, a woman simply needs the steady presence of Saint Joseph in the house. Joseph himself would have known the concern of leaving Mary at his own death and wondering how to provide for her care.
Joseph was the man who simply got up and went, as soon as God revealed to him in a dream the role he was to play in raising the Son of God. He teaches us that even when we have a great responsibility in caring for others, we can still go to sleep trusting that the everlasting Father ultimately holds all things in his hands.
Joseph lived through catastrophes. “No room in the inn!” Door after door closed as he searched for a place where Mary could safely give birth to Jesus. I would have had a meltdown. Joseph simply kept providing and protecting.
“Get up and go to Egypt!” Egypt? In the middle of the night? Joseph guided his little family away from everything they knew—their home village, where family and friends were awaiting their return (remember this was before cellphones and texting). Overnight they became exiles as they left behind the only land they knew. For about seven years they made their home in Egypt, waiting for God’s next direction.
And Joseph is the patron of a good death. We don’t know exactly when he died, but we do know it was before Jesus’ public life, because he is never mentioned again after Jesus is found in the Temple. Joseph breathed his last surrounded by the care and love of Jesus and Mary—something he surely desires for everyone else.
Saint Joseph: Provide for Us
The book was finished in about a month, but my own devotion to him keeps on growing.
On our back stairway at the provincial house is a very large statue of Saint Joseph. Behind the statue we place small slips of paper for anything we need help with. And he always provides, maybe not in the way we expect, but he always is there for us. In fact, from the beginning of our congregation, Joseph has always made sure we were provided for.
But my favorite image at this stage of my life is the sleeping Saint Joseph. Not because I love to sleep. Rather when I am anxious or don’t know where to turn, I imagine Saint Joseph sleeping peacefully in the desert on the way to Egypt. When someone shares with me their own story of concern or loss or fear, I share this image of Joseph with them. How could Saint Joseph sleep? Because he knew that even though it was his job to protect Mary and Jesus and get the family safely to Egypt, he could sleep because he had discovered and now trusted that God himself was in charge of the unfolding of salvation history. I want to be able to sleep like that, a sleep that is at peace no matter what happens because I have the vision to see that I am not alone—and I am certainly not in charge here!
To Be Where the People Are
I have no delusions that my little book on Saint Joseph will be returned in 40 years as worn and beloved as the book that is now in the case of our museum. But I do know that Saint Joseph himself is standing at the side of the thousands of readers who are reaching out to him in whatever emergency has befallen them. And after all, that’s what matters.
And this is really what our mission is all about. Turning whatever space in which people find themselves into a place of encounter with God.
Our Founder, Blessed James Alberione, told us that it was not our mission to remain in the sacristies. As noble as this mission is, ours is to go out and to be where the people are, bringing them the healing presence of God in that very spot where they may—or they may not—have been looking for them.
Our mission, he said, was not to teach in one school, but to teach in the classroom of the whole world. And even more to be beside his people as they struggle through the curve balls that life throws at them—in prayer, in presence, by bringing the grace of Jesus’ love for them right into the moment where they most long to meet him. By being Jesus for them through the media, by which we can reach tens and hundreds of thousands of people right where Jesus wants to be…with them, right there where they curl up with a book, or randomly read a social media post, or listen to a podcast on the way to work, or read a book to their child, or sit in prayer before the Eucharist. These humble places become churches where they encounter God who is pouring out his love on them. This, in short, was the mission of Jesus who came among us, as one who lived and suffered with us, and who showed us a new way of living and loving and trusting his Father.
Saint Joseph is for me the gentle guide to a trust that is strong enough to rest peacefully in the hands of God who once said, “You’re in the palm of my hand…always” (see Isaiah 49:16).
Featured Image: Statue (19th century) of Saint Joseph holding baby Jesus Christ in his arms, via Pixabay.