Day 3: Foster Father of Jesus

On the third day of the Saint Joseph Novena, we contemplate the most exalted of all his titles after his being chosen as Mary's husband: he is the foster father of Jesus. The Eternal Son, in the mystery of the Incarnation, accepted to live in human history within a particular family. The man God chose to be the father of His own Son in the order of human relations is Saint Joseph.

Today's meditation

The Gospel of Saint Matthew records that the angel of the Lord said to Joseph: "You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21). The naming of a child in ancient Israel was a paternal act. By naming Jesus, Joseph performed a legal act of paternal recognition; the child was thereby established as a son in his household, as a Davidic descendant, and as one for whom Joseph would bear paternal responsibility.

Saint Joseph raised the boy Jesus. He taught Him the carpenter's trade. He brought Him each year to Jerusalem for the Passover. He searched for Him with Mary when the boy was lost in the temple at twelve years old (Luke 2:41-51). He was the man whose face the boy Jesus saw bending over Him in love, the man whose hands Jesus learned to imitate at the workbench, the man in whose presence Jesus grew "in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man" (Luke 2:52).

Today's intention

Today, place under Saint Joseph's fatherhood the children and young people in your life: your own children, your grandchildren, your nieces and nephews, your godchildren, the children of your parish, the children at risk in our cultural moment, the unborn whose lives are being decided. Ask Saint Joseph the foster father of Jesus to be a father to them all.

The traditional St Joseph novena prayer

O Saint Joseph, whose protection is so great, so strong, so prompt before the throne of God, I place in you all my interests and desires. O Saint Joseph, do assist me by your powerful intercession, and obtain for me from your Divine Son all spiritual blessings, through Jesus Christ, our Lord; so that, having engaged here below your Heavenly power, I may offer my Thanksgiving and Homage to the most Loving of Fathers. O Saint Joseph, I never weary contemplating you, and Jesus asleep in your arms; I dare not approach while He reposes near your heart. Press Him in my name and kiss His fine Head for me, and ask Him to return the Kiss when I draw my dying breath. Saint Joseph, Patron of departing souls, pray for me. Amen.

Reflection

The Catholic theology of Saint Joseph's foster fatherhood holds that, although Joseph was not the biological father of Jesus, his fatherhood was real, complete, and spiritually rich. Saint Thomas Aquinas, in the Summa Theologiae, devotes a question to whether Saint Joseph can be called the father of Christ; his answer is that Joseph is truly father in the order of legal and providential paternity, even as Christ's biological generation is from the Holy Spirit and Mary alone. "Joseph was the foster father of Christ, and is so named, since he nourished and raised Him as a father, although he was not His father in the order of generation."

Pope Saint John Paul II in Redemptoris Custos describes Saint Joseph's fatherhood as a "shadow of the Father": an icon, in the human order, of the Eternal Father whom the Son revealed. The boy Jesus learned what fatherhood looks like, in human terms, by being raised by Joseph. The day Jesus would later teach His disciples the Our Father, He had thirty years of paternal experience to draw on, all of it rooted in the fatherhood of Joseph.

The Catholic father today, looking for a model, finds his model in Saint Joseph: a man who was present, who provided, who protected, who taught his trade, who prayed with his family, who took the journey to Jerusalem each year for the feast, who searched anxiously when the child was missing, who worked silently and faithfully in obscurity. The fatherhood of Saint Joseph is the answer to the crisis of fatherhood in our time.

Closing prayers

Pray seven times each: the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be.

Saint Joseph, foster father of Jesus, pray for us.