The Feast of St Joseph

 

Today is the Feast of St Joseph. We don’t know much about Jesus’ earthly father. We know he was from a good family …both Luke and Matthew record Joseph in their genealogies. The genealogies differ in that Luke records the actual ancestors of Joseph – Heli being the father of Joseph and so on up to David, while Matthew traces the successive heirs to the throne of David from David down to Joseph – and records Jacob as the father of Joseph. This doesn’t mean there is a contradiction in scripture – simply different genealogies for different purposes.

We also know that he was an artisan or craftsman/builder living in Nazareth. The last mention of Joseph in the bible is when Jesus was found teaching in the temple at age 12 while his parents frantically searched for him. Although this saint is often portrayed as humble and silent – if we look at how brave, strong and convinced of God’s hand in his life – so much so that he went against prevailing norms of society on at least two occasions – we can rest assured that he was no wishy-washy character…