I have written a great deal on the topic of Roman Catholic Mariology, such as my book-length study, Behold the Mother of My Lord: Towards a Mormon Mariology. Notwithstanding, in acceptable Catholic devotion and piety, there is a very “high” theology of St. Joseph. Note the following from Mark Miravalle:
. . . many popes have
happily thrown in their own sublime praise of the “Just Man” of the New
Testament. Blessed Pius IX declared him the “Patron of the Universal Church” (Quemadmodum
Deus, December 8, 1970), which is a title above and beyond that given to
any other saint in history, except for Mary. Leo XIII confirms of St. Joseph
that “there is no doubt he approached nearer than any other to the
superabundant dignity of hers” (Quamquam Pluries, August 15, 1889). Pius
XI even speaks of his “all-powerful intercession” (through his relationship to
Jesus and Mary) as the true Head of the Holy Family:
As. St. Joseph was
truly the head r the master of that house [Nazareth], his intercession cannot
be but all-powerful. For what could Jesus and Mary refuse to St. Joseph, as he
was entirely devoted to them all his life, and to whom they truly owed the
means of their earthly existence?” (Papal Allocution, L’Osservatore Romano,
March 19, 1938)
The papal
superlatives go on and on. (Indulge me as I mention a few more.) Saint John
XXIII declared St. Joseph the Patron of the Second Vatican Council and inserted
his name into the Roman Canon of the Mass (Papal Allocution, March 19, 1961).
And more recently, St. Paul Paul II confirmed the unique sanctity and dignity
of St. Joseph in his Apostolic Letter Redemptoris Custos (Guardian of
the Redeemer), where he identifies him as “the Just Man,” “a perfection of
charity” that leads to a harmonious blending of contemplation and action: “In
Joseph, the apparent tension between the active and the contemplative life
finds an ideal harmony that is only possible for those who possess the
perfection of charity”(Redemptoris Custos, n. 27) . . . Even the Mother
of God offers testimony to the holiness of her husband and how it’s imperative
or the human family, in our present situation, to show proper honor to this
greatest male saint. For example, during the Marian apparitions at Fatima when
70,000 people witnessed the historic “solar miracle” on October 13, 1917, St.
Joseph appeared with the Child Jesus and blessed the world as a sign of the
importance of devotion to St. Joseph for the “Triumph of the Immaculate Heart,”
promised by Our Lady of Fatima (12). Also, during the more recently reported revelations
of Our Lady of America (revelations strongly supported by Cardinal Raymond
Burke and worthy of our consideration as well), the Blessed Virgin refers to
the holiness of St. Joseph as the fruit of his constant awareness of the
indwelling Trinity. At the same apparition, St. Joseph himself speaks of his
unique God given privileges of grace and calls for a new devotion to his “Pure
Heart” as well as to his “Fatherhood” (October 1956 Messages of Our Lady of
America, www.ourladyofamerica.org). (Mark Miravalle, Meet Your Spiritual
Father: A Brief Introduction to St. Joseph [Sycamore, Ill.: Lighthouse
Catholic Media, 2015], 12-13, 14)
Commenting on the pious belief that, as
with Mary in Catholic dogmatic theology, Joseph was bodily assumed into heaven
after his death, Miravalle wrote:
St. Joseph’s
Assumption?
Some Doctors of the
Church and other ecclesiastical writers see a clue about a possible
resurrection and assumption of St. Joseph (not a Church doctrine, but an
acceptable theological opinion) indicated by the way the bodily remains of the
Old Testament Joseph were returned to Israel at the time of the Exodus.
When the People of
Israel departed on their historic return to the Promised Land of Israel, they
carried the “bones of Joseph” with them into the Promised Land, as Joseph
himself foretold: “Then Joseph took an oath of the sons of Israel, saying, ‘God
will visit you, and you shall carry my bones from here’” (Gen 50;25; see also
Ex 13:19). In light of this, it is possible that St. Joseph, because of his union
with Jesus and Mary, would be the first, after the resurrection of Jesus, to be
brought body and soul into the eternal “promised land” of heaven (see Mt
27:52).
Several great
Josephite theologians such as St. Francis de Sales, St. Bernadine of Siena,
Francisco Suarez, and others taught that while an early, bodily resurrection
and assumption of St. Joseph is not a doctrine of the Church, it is still an acceptable
theological opinion (for one example of defense of the Assumption of St.
Joseph, see St. Francis de Sales, The Spiritual Conferences, 19, 383).
Interestingly, St. Pope John XXIII refers to the Assumption of St. Joseph as an
acceptable pious belief in a 1960 Homily on the Ascension of Jesus (AAS 52,
455-456).
It seems appropriate
that if any saint would experience an early assumption of his body, it would be
the virginal father of the Savior and spouse of the Immaculate One (not in
virtue of an immaculate conception, as was uniquely the case with Our Lady, but
due to his interior unity with Jesus and Mary and his pre-eminent sanctity
after Mary). (Ibid., 19-20)
Commenting on the expansion in piety to
St. Joseph in the Middle Ages, Miravalle discusses the work of 15th-century
author, Fr.. John Gerson, chancellor of the University of Paris:
This French teacher
and preacher wrote the celebrated Considerations on St. Joseph, an
extensive Latin poem that expounded upon St. Joseph’s virtues.
Gerson also delivered
a notable sermon on St. Joseph during the Council of Constans [RB: alt ‘Constance’
in 1415] in the early 15th century, in which he called the
Council fathers to officially invoke St. Joseph’s intercession for the Church
(at a time of great trial because of the Western Schism) and to institute a
feast of St. Joseph to obtain his powerful intercession for the Church’s unity.
Gerson’s starting point
and the guiding principle for his theology of St. Joseph was this: Joseph was
the true husband of the Mother of God. For Gerson, all of Joseph’s other
extraordinary virtues and gifts flowed from this fundamental principle.
This French preacher
maintained that St. Joseph was pre-sanctified in his mother’s womb (similar to St.
John the Baptist); that his sanctity reached higher than the angelic choirs of Seraphim
and Cherubim (by virtue of his “proximity” or closeness to Jesus and Mary); and
that he was the protector of the Church (which set the foundations for the
later papal declarations of St. Joseph as “Patron of the Universal Church” (see
Filas, Joseph: The Man Closest to Christ, pp. 139-140).
Here's just one
example of the beauty of Gerson’s teachings concerning Joseph and his
relationship to Jesus:
Joseph was the father
of Jesus Christ in the people’s opinion, father in his solicitude as foster
parent, and father in the generation—not of course on his own part but on the
part of his wife, Mary, in whom the Holy Spirit worked and in a certain sense
represented joseph not with human seed but with mystical inspiration. Joseph can
therefore be called father of the Child Jesus, not the actual but rather the
legal father to whom the Holy Spirit raised up a seed more eminent than fleshly
seed. Jesus was indeed born out of the land and property of Joseph . . . Should
there not be accorded to him in preference to all other men a legal right to
the praiseworthy rearing of the Child Jesus since Jesus was born in the flesh
and out of the flesh whose possession was truly delivered to Joseph by the
right of marriage? (John Gerson, Considerations on St. Joseph)
In the 15th
century, an extensive growth in devotion to St. Joseph was visible in the liturgy.
Pope Sixtus IV introduced the feast of St. Joseph to the church in Rome and
then in churches all across Europe, the faithful began to include the Mass and
Office of St. Joseph in their breviaries and missals. (Ibid., 64-65)
As with Rome's Mariology, her "Josephite" theology and devotion is very problematic.
In my next post, I will reproduce various
prays to St. Joseph in accepted Catholic piety and devotion.
