Solemnity of Saint Joseph, husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary

He believed, hoping against hope,

that he would become the father of many nations,

according to what was said, Thus shall your descendants be.

That is why it was credited to him as righteousness.

The above passage from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans, and today’s second reading, is about the Patriarch Abraham. In this important epistle, Saint Paul insists that God credits righteousness to us because of our faith, rather than our works. The works include both pious observance and charitable deeds. These good works are beautiful and good and somehow necessary, but only the God who observes the heart knows their worth. Therefore, we are judged not by our works but by our faith.

Though he is speaking of the Abraham our father in faith, the liturgy suggests we reflect on them as we celebrate Joseph the husband of Mary. Catholics speak of him as “the foster father of Jesus” to honor Mary’s virginity, but he is also Jesus’ true father in a spiritual way. He is that righteous man who observed the law, acting as he did because he was driven by the love of God, devotion to his wife and fidelity to his child.

Saint Matthew begins his gospel tracing Jesus’ lineage from Abraham to Joseph. Joseph is, in a sense, the “Abraham of the New Testament;” he carries the tradition of faith into this new chapter in Salvation History, especially as we find him in Saint Matthew’s Gospel.

The Letter to the Hebrews recalls Abraham’s hoping against hope… Joseph’s situation seems every bit as hopeless as that of Abraham. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, he leapt out of bed, roused his wife who grabbed the baby, and the three of them fled to Egypt. In doing so Joseph abandoned his career, family, and homeland; just as Abraham had left everything to inherit the Promised Land. Neither man would see the final destiny: Abraham died centuries before King David claimed the land for his kingdom; Joseph disappeared from the New Testament long before Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Hebrews says of Abraham:

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; he went out, not knowing where he was to go.

By faith he sojourned in the promised land as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs of the same promise;

for he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and maker is God.

By faith he received power to generate, even though he was past the normal age--and Sarah herself was sterile--for he thought that the one who had made the promise was trustworthy.

So it was that there came forth from one man, himself as good as dead, descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sands on the seashore.

Like Abraham, we imagine Joseph as an old man, “past the normal age” of having children. Like “our father in faith” he is the “father of the Church” because he was the father of Jesus, and thereby the father of “descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sands on the seashore.

Joseph, the quiet man whose voice is never heard in the Bible, still inspires us to look for that city with foundations whose architect and maker is God.