In addition to the much celebrated St. Patrick this month, we also celebrate the feast day of St. Joseph on March 19. St. Joseph is the patron saint for many causes including: Fathers, Social Justice, Travelers, Carpenters, Workers, and a Happy Death.
The Bible pays Joseph the highest compliment: he was a "just" man.
When the Bible speaks of God "justifying" someone, it means that God, the all-holy or "righteous" one, so transforms a person that the individual shares somehow in God's own holiness, and hence it is really "right" for God to love him or her.
By saying Joseph was "just," the Bible means that he was one who was completely open to all that God wanted to do for him. He became holy by opening himself totally to God.
The rest we can easily surmise. Think of the kind of love with which he wooed and won Mary, and the depth of the love they shared during their marriage.
It is no contradiction of Joseph's manly holiness that he decided to divorce Mary when she was found to be with child. The important words of the Bible are that he planned to do this "quietly" because he was "a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame" (Matthew 1:19).
The just man was simply, joyfully, wholeheartedly obedient to God-in marrying Mary, in naming Jesus, in shepherding the precious pair to Egypt, in bringing them to Nazareth, in the undetermined number of years of quiet faith and courage.
In the spirit of St. Joseph, we are so grateful for your joyful, wholehearted embrace of the Gift of Life and by extension the abundant Lord who granted it to each of us.
