When Our Lady appeared at Knock, she brought the men in her life! The three men featured, in order, in the Gospel are St Joseph, Jesus and St John. The inclusion of St Joseph and St John is a reminder of their relationship with Our Lady and their roles in Her life.
While he has been long invoked and revered as Protector of the Universal Church, in recent years there is a new impetus of devotion to St Joseph. Beginning on May 1, 2013, the Solemnity of St Joseph the Worker, Pope Francis saw to it that St Joseph be explicitly mentioned by name at every Mass after mention of Our Lady in all Eucharistic Prayers.
St Joseph was recently honoured with a special ‘’Year of St Joseph’’ in 2020-2021. Furthermore, as Pope Francis had a particular devotion to ‘the sleeping Joseph’ many people now invoke and venerate St Joseph.
With the apparition at Knock, we have been graced in Ireland with this unique apparition of the quiet man – St Joseph. He is supremely relevant to our age Why, though, in God’s plan is St Joseph included in the vision at Knock?
I suggest four reasons.
St Joseph, the ideal husband and family-man
The posture of St Joseph in the Knock apparition is one of profound reverence, respect and love to Mary, his wife.
The Church recently declared about St Joseph: “This Just man, caring most lovingly for the Mother of God and happily dedicated himself to the upbringing of Jesus Christ was placed as guardian over the Father’s most precious treasures.”
Ask any woman what qualities she would want in her husband! Love of course, but a love that is proved in deeds as well as words. Trust, above all, is the greatest currency in any relationship, and that means fidelity. Wives and mothers see the need for their husbands to be protectors and providers, who care for them and their children, where they feel safe.
St Joseph was all of these things in the Holy Family.
St Joseph is a man of so many virtues. He is a loyal, supportive, hard-working, diligent, caring, wise, prudent provider”
As we open the Book of the Gospels, we can read those passages that refer to St Joseph and the Holy Family. Their way of life is a model for families.
We live in a society in search of true fathers and mothers. St Joseph can be the father-figure many people lack. How does this ‘absence’ manifest itself? Some women search to fill the void in their hearts, seeking the attention and affection they so long craved and never received from their own fathers. Men, too, have troubling issues seeking the male role-model that was lacking in childhood, and struggle to be good fathers themselves, ignorant of what fatherhood entails. Intercession through St Joseph can help to guide, intercede, and instruct us to fill the gaps. St Joseph points us in the direction of true virtuous ‘manliness’, not an oppressive, chauvinistic masculinity.
St Joseph is a man of so many virtues. He is a loyal, supportive, hard-working, diligent, caring, wise, prudent provider. He was attentive to God and read the signs of the times. He was a practical man, while obedient to the State demands of the census, he fled tyranny. He discerned and judged wisely. God entrusted to him the safety of Jesus and Mary from Herod and other perils.
He had a unique role in the Holy Family and the extraordinary privilege of living under one roof and enjoying the ever-present company of Jesus and Mary. As a family they were attentive to their religious duties, going to Passover in Jerusalem “as was their custom” (Luke 2:41). As a father he did not neglect his religious duties. Recent studies have in fact shown that a sure indicator and guarantee of religious practice in the next generation is the guidance and accompaniment of fathers at Sunday Mass.
“Blessed be St Joseph, her spouse most chaste.”
In 2013, the Church declared that St Joseph “stands as an exemplary model of the kindness and humility that Christian faith raises to a great destiny and demonstrates the ordinary and simple virtues necessary for men to be good and genuine followers of Christ.”
While St Joseph is an intercessor for us all, he not only has a particular role model for all men as an example of the virtue of heroic chastity. The marriage of Joseph and Mary was a uniquely chaste marriage. We pray in the Divine Praises at Benediction: “Blessed be St Joseph, her spouse most chaste.”
St Joseph was called to be a husband, and while his love for Mary was so wonderfully mysterious in its uniqueness, it was a pure love. St Joseph is a model of male chastity, something that can only be maintained by prayer, humility, honesty, asceticism, and the grace of God. Ask any man. The cultural moral climate is anything but pure. Men and women must weave and swerve, duck, and dive between a myriad of impure assaults on the senses. Victory over impurity is possible to us men, as well as women, who are unfortunately subject to moral weaknesses, vulnerabilities, and compulsions.
What is needed is accompaniment by spiritual, understanding friends as well as a good, wise, prudent priest father-confessor, under the patronage of St Joseph. St Joseph’s demeanour at Knock can teach us how to look with love’s pure gaze at Our Lady, and through Her at all women as God would have us see them.
St Joseph the Worker
St Joseph is a reminder of the dignity of labour, especially manual work. His second feast day on May 1, that of St Joseph the Worker, points to every Christian’s calling to fulfil our calling, apply our talents, perform the tasks assigned to us and to sanctify the workplace, civic society, and ourselves through faithful performance of our duty. As my late grandfather, himself a factory worker, often said – “play well your part.” This requires all the virtues of due diligence, self-discipline, quiet fidelity to the tasks assigned to us, reliability – in a word, integrity.
A happy and a holy death
The presence of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, as well as St John at Knock reminds us of our family in heaven, though “the ties of kinship and affection that unite us” are severed temporarily, even though painfully, on this earth as it was for them. They experienced parting from each other in death, and it is assumed that Joseph preceded Jesus and Mary, dying in their arms. For that reason, St Joseph is often invoked for a happy and holy death. We will see them again “where sorrow will be no more and every tear will be wiped away.’’ We grieve as we love. Death is not the end.
