Saint Joseph

Invocation

“Saint Joseph, silent carpenter, watch over this home and all who dwell within it.”

Life and Devotion

Joseph is presented in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke as the husband of Mary and the legal father of Jesus. Matthew devotes the first two chapters of his Gospel to him, depicting a just and reticent man, obedient to the messages of angels in his dreams: he welcomes the pregnant Mary, flees to Egypt to protect the child, returns to Galilee at a new angelic prompting. Luke mentions him at the Presentation in the Temple and at the finding of the twelve-year-old Jesus in Jerusalem. Beyond these Gospel accounts, he is not named again in the New Testament — hence the tradition that holds he died before Jesus's public ministry began. Tradition assigns him the trade of carpenter (tekton in Greek, denoting a craftsman in wood or stone). Of Davidic lineage, he is in Christian theology the link between the messianic promises of the Old Testament and their fulfillment in the person of Jesus. His principal feast is March 19, a liturgically high-ranking celebration; May 1 is dedicated to him as patron of workers, instituted by Pius XII in 1955 in response to the secular international Labor Day. His veneration grew considerably from the fifteenth century onward, carried notably by Teresa of Ávila, who made him the patron of her convents.

Joseph's patronage over the home, work, fathers, and a holy death is a theologically coherent fabric of meaning. A woodworker, he naturally patronizes manual trades and all who earn their living through work. Head of the family who shielded Mary and the Child during the flight to Egypt, he is the model of the quiet yet steadfast father, present without imposing himself. The tradition of the 'holy death' is associated with him because he is believed to have died in the arms of Jesus and Mary — dying enveloped in perfect love, he is invoked to accompany the dying. His real-estate patronage — burying his statuette upside down to sell a house — is a twentieth-century North American popular practice, a logical extension of his role as provider of shelter for the Holy Family.

Invoking Saint Joseph is done simply, in the register of daily life: one entrusts him with job searches, property negotiations, the protection of the household, and anxiety over children. His feast on March 19 may be marked by a family meal, offerings of worked wood or handmade objects. The popular practice of burying a medal in the garden, head down, until the property sells — then digging it up and honoring it once the deed is signed — is a perfect example of the pragmatic popular piety surrounding this saint: he is trusted like a contractor of proven reputation, and thanked when the result is delivered.