By Sandra Kirby, Class of 2018
When someone asks us to name the greatest saints of history, we usually turn immediately to the most dynamic characters such as the martyrs, Popes, and kings of the ages. Next we might name the Doctors of the Church, those who set themselves apart theologically and left behind famously edifying works. Everyone knows the names of St. Stephen, St. Peter, and St. Edward the Confessor, of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, but one of the greatest saints, whose story is indeed known but often neglected, is St. Joseph. He is the silent saint, humble and obedient, a simple carpenter. Perhaps this is why we find him so easy to overlook, but his modesty makes him no less valiant than those public heroes whose stories we so love to tell.
St. Joseph did not set out in search of glory and renown, yet he was chosen for a more glorious role than he ever could have imagined. When he met Our Lady he was looking for a wife, not the Mother of God. When the angel came to warn him in a dream, he was simply looking to get some rest, not to hold the fate of the world’s salvation in his hands. He was the rock of Our Lady and the shield of the Christ Child, a model of fortitude and faith.
Despite the gravity of his duties, St. Joseph never assumed an air of self-importance or vanity. He never grew puffed up at this honor and responsibility; he simply responded with holy wonder and perfect obedience.
Even in death St. Joseph appears to have retained his humility. He was entrusted with the protection of the Son of God, and yet he is hardly mentioned in Scripture. We do not know of his death except by his absence at the foot of the Cross, when Christ places His Mother Mary under the protection of St. John. Tradition indicates that he died before Christ’s public ministry began.
Indeed, he left little trace of himself behind. Yet while he wrote no grand treatise on the Blessed Trinity, he held the Second Person of that Trinity in his arms, and in his final moments the Son of God must have held St. Joseph as he breathed his last. What more could anyone ask for than to die surrounded by loved ones, indeed, by the Source of Love Himself? Could there be anything more comforting or more glorious?
Let us take St. Joseph as our own example, in the hope that we too may enjoy with him forever the company of Christ and of Our Lady in the eternal contemplation of the Most Blessed Trinity.
O Blessed St. Joseph, thou gavest thy last breath in the loving embrace of Jesus and Mary. When the seal of death shall close my life, come with Jesus and Mary to aid me. Obtain for me this solace for that hour—to die with their holy arms around me. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I commend my soul, living and dying, into your sacred arms. Amen.
For further reading:
Thomas More College Unites in Prayer and Fasting for the Unborn
