Wednesday, October 18, 2023

Mauro Gagliardi on the Bodily Assumption of St. Joseph

  

It is a fact, which is far from insignificant, that there is no place in the world claiming to possess the relics of Satin Joseph. (We mean relics of the body. In some places, objects are kept that are believed to have been his property; for example, the ring of Saint Joseph is kept at Perugia, while his staff is at the Camaldolese in Florence, and so on) This is remarkable, since the local Church have always “competed” to obtain the relics of the saints. In certain eras, this has also led to the trade, and in some cases, the creation of false relics. Why did no one come to think of seeking or “creating” the relics of Saint Joseph, despite the fact that the devotion to the putative faith of Jesus has always been so strong in the Church? This argument was used by Saint Francis de Sales, Doctor of the Church, who believed in the assumption of Joseph:

 

What remains to be said now, if not that we must not think that this glorious Saint does not have much credit in Heaven to the One who has favored him to much to raise him in Heaven in body and soul; which seems to me to be all the more likely, since here on earth we have no relic, and it seems to me that no one can doubt this truth; in fact, how could He have refused this grace to Saint Joseph, the One [Jesus] who had been so obedient to him in His life? . . . How could we doubt that our Lord did not bring to Heaven with Him, in body and soul, the glorious Saint Joseph, who had the honor and grace to carry Him so often in his blessed arms, arms in which our Lord was so pleased? . . . Therefore, Saint Joseph is undoubtedly in Heaven in body and soul. (Saint Francis de Sales, Les vrais entretiens spirituels, appendix III, “Sermon on the Virtues of Saint Joseph” [our translation]). (Mauro Gagliardi, Truth is a Synthesis: Catholic Dogmatic Theology [Steubenville, Ohio: Emmaus Academic, 2020], 539)


Commenting on other witnesses to this teaching, Gagliardi notes that: 


Other authors that have spoken in this regard, include Saint Bernardino of Siena, Sermo de Sancto Joseph Sponso Beatae Virginis, P. Poquet (d. 1408), Dictamen de laudibus beati Joseph; Blessed Bernardine of Feltre (d. 1494); Isidore of Isolanis (d. 1528), Summa de donis Sancti Joseph, year 1522. The theologian Jean Charlier de Gerson (d. 1429) on September 8, 1416, spoke in the presence of the Fathers of the Council of Constance the Sermo de nativitate gloriosae Virginis Mariae et de commendatione virginei sponsi eius Joseph, in which he argued for the sanctification of Saint Joseph in his mother’s womb, his immunity from concupiscence, his resurrection with Jesus, and his assumption into Heaven. (Ibid., 539 n. 132)