St. Joseph - A religious Man

A more intense devotion to St. Joseph in this time when the world is battling with so much of hunger and war, killing and looting everywhere would not be inappropriate.

In fact saint Joseph is often invoked in difficult times as he is known to have protected Mother Mary and Jesus. St. Joseph was a religious man who practiced righteousness towards God and man.

He honored God through worship and faith in God. He was a craftsman, specialist, who lived on his own handiwork. When attending the temple Joseph did as the faithful Jew.

However surely he was a pious Jew , as we see in the episode of Jesus lost in the Temple: "His parents went every year to Jerusalem for the feast of Easter," says Luke. In the Gospel of St. Matthew is now listened to him as head of the family that it is to attribute the name to the newborn child: "Mary will give birth to a son and you shall call his name Jesus!"

Under his leadership and guardianship Mary and Jesus felt more fully secured and protected.

Joseph becomes a participant in the same mystery of God, together with Mary, after her, as the Gospel of today's solemnity testifies: "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins" (Mt 1:20-21). The name "Jesus" in fact means "God saves", and therefore: "Savior".

To Joseph, then, to the carpenter of Nazareth, was entrusted, as to Mary, the same mystery of God. A great mystery, the mystery eternally hidden in God, a mystery that became flesh" in man's history and was revealed to human hearts: to the eyes of faith.