St. Joseph with the Child Jesus. Photos Ansa. Above and on the cover: San Giuseppe worker, by Modesto Faustini (1839-91), Spanish chapel, Loreto from the Sanctuarioloreto site.va
It is the patron of dads but also of carpenters, ebanists, carpenters, homeless and even mountains of pity and related pledge loans. On 8 December 1870, Pope Pius IX It proclaimed him patron of the universal Church. The solemn party of St. Joseph is the March 19th But the liturgical and social field is also very celebrated May 1stFesta del Lavoro, as the patron of artisans and workers, thus proclaimed by Pope Pius XII. John XXIIII The Second Vatican Council entrusted him while he is one of the favorite saints by Pope Francis who wanted to enter his name in the canon of Mass.
His cult has reached great popularity as also demonstrate the declarations of many churches relating to the presence of his relics. In the church of Notre-Dame of Paris There would be the engagement rings, his and that of Mary; Perugia would have its wedding ring; In the Parisian church of the foglianti the fragments of one of his belts would be found. Again: ad Aquisgrana The bands or shoes are exposed that would have enveloped his legs and the Camaldolese of the church of S. Maria degli Angeli in Florence declare that they are in possession of his stick.
The name Giuseppe is of Jewish origin and means “God add”extensively it can be said “added in the family”. It may be that the beginning took place with the name of the son of Jacob and Rachele, sold out of jealousy as a slave from the brothers. His popularity is due to the fact that he was the putative father of Jesus. Vensed in the East by the fourth century and in the West just before the 11th century, that is, since his cult began to spread among Christians. However, there is no doubt that the fame of that name was strengthened in Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Gerrit van Honthorst, the Child Jesus in the Bottega di San Giuseppe, 1620, Hermitage, St. Petersburg
An exemplary paternity model
St. Joseph was the bridegroom of Mary, the head of the “Holy Family” in which he was born by the work of the Holy Spirit, Jesus. And orienting his life on the trace of some dreams, in which the angels deliver the messages of the Lord, embodied an exemplary paternity model. It was certainly not an absent. It is true, it was very silent, but up to the thirty years of the life of the Messiah, it was always next to the Son with faith, obedience and willingness to accept the plans of God. He began to warm him up in the poor cradle of the stable, he put him in rescued in Egypt when it was necessary, he worried about looking for him when they had “disappeared” in the temple, he had with him in the work of the carpenter, he helped him with him. grow “in wisdom, age and grace”.
Giuseppe was, like Maria, descendant of Davide’s house and royal lineage, a nominal nobilitybecause life forced him to make the country’s craftsman, to get busy in the careful processing of the wood. Work tools for farmers and shepherds and humble furniture and homemade objects for the poor homes of Galilee came out of his workshop.
Figure of generous humility
In the document of the Congregation for Divine Cult, which has included his mention in the canon of Mass, reads: «Through the paternal care of Jesus, St. Joseph of Nazareth, headed by the Lord’s family, copiously fulfilled the mission received from grace in the economy of salvation».
His acceptance of Mary, pregnant, as a bride; Even if he was well aware of not having had relationships with her, and the acceptance of the “beginnings of the mysteries of human salvation”, adhering to the news of the conception by the Holy Spirit makes it a leading character in Christian life. In addition, the document notes, St. Joseph has “become exemplary model of that generous humility that Christianity raises to great destinies and witness of those common, human and simple virtues, necessary because men are honest and authentic followers of Christ”.
The sources of his life are the Gospels of Matteo and Luca
Many sure things are not known about him, no more than the one who canonically report the evangelists Matteo And Luca. Instead, the so -called apocryphal gospels were indulged around his figure. From many of their legendary news, however, they took the distances of authoritative personalities such as San Girolamo (347 ca.-420), Sant’Agostino (354-430) e San Tommaso d’Aquino
(1225-1274).
It is worth reporting only a legend circulating around her marriage to Maria. On that occasion there would have been a race among the aspirants to the young man’s hand. That race would have been won by Giuseppe, as the dry stick that represented it, as per the regulation, would suddenly and prodigiously flower. It was obviously wanted to mean how the grace of redemption was reforuded by the unusual strain of the Old Testament.
