St Joseph: The Man who Raised the Lord

by Gunther Simmermacher · Published March 19, 2024 · Updated March 18, 2024

As the man who raised the Saviour, St Joseph holds a special place in the Catholic heart. Günther Simmermacher looks at his life.

St Joseph at a Glance

Name at birth: Yosef
Born: 1st century BC, possibly in Bethlehem
Died: 1st century AD, possibly in Nazareth
Feast: March 19 (principal), May 1 (St Joseph the Worker)
Patronages: Catholic Church, fathers, married people, virgins, workers, exiles, the sick and dying, for a holy death

He speaks not a word in Scripture, and is mentioned in only two Gospels. Very little is known about him, but his actions were so vital in the story of God’s Incarnation that St Joseph is one of the Church’s most beloved saints.

Joseph enters the Gospels as a man betrothed to Mary, a young woman in Nazareth who has given her assent to bear the Messiah. This puts St Joseph in a predicament. His future wife will be pregnant before their marriage has even begun. Joseph will be publicly dishonoured by that. And then bring up what people would think was another man’s child?

On the other hand, if Joseph breaks the engagement, Mary will be treated as an adultress, and suffer some consequence — social ostracism or even capital punishment by stoning. Joseph is a good man, and he does not want this for the young Mary, a girl of maybe 14 years whose reputation has been spotless.

Mary has removed herself from the situation by going to Judea to stay for a while with her cousin Elizabeth (see the Saint of the Month in November 2022). This gives Joseph some time to consider his options. The issue is settled by an angel appearing to Joseph in a dream, telling him: “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:20-21).

Of royal lineage

Joseph came from a royal lineage, going back to King David, and further to Abraham. According to Matthew, “there were 14 generations in all from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the exile to Babylon, and 14 from the exile to the Messiah”, with Joseph’s father being named as Jacob (1:1-17). In his Gospel, Luke hints at a different lineage, but what is important is that both place Joseph in the House of David, a benefit of heritage which offered Joseph some social status.

We do not know where Joseph was born, nor when. He might have been a young man when he was betrothed to Mary, but all tradition points to it that he might have been of more matured age, in some accounts a geriatric. The apocryphal Gospel of James, written about 150 AD, presents Joseph as an older man, widowed by the time he enters the Gospel narrative.

In the New Testament we hear repeated reference to Jesus’ “brothers” — and on two occasions sisters — with the brothers being named. The original Greek text refers to them as adelphoi, a word that can mean both brothers or other kin, such as cousins. So we do not really know whether these brothers and sisters were Jesus’ siblings or cousins. The apocryphal Gospel of James suggests that they were Joseph’s offspring from a first marriage, a position echoed by Epiphanius of Salamis in around 375. Ancient Church tradition also holds that Mary was a lifelong virgin, and that the marriage between Mary and Joseph was therefore chaste.

And as a widower, Joseph might have sought a spouse not for purposes of romance or carnal gratification but for practical reasons — a woman to function as a housewife. That would be consistent with the culture in which they lived, and it also conforms with a non-canonical tradition that Mary had been a consecrated Temple virgin. Whatever the facts may be, the ancient Christian view is that Joseph was chosen by God to take care of Mary, bearer of the Saviour.

Joseph and Mary are not yet married when they go to Bethlehem, at some point before the year 4 BC, where Mary gives birth to her son, who is duly named Jesus. There Joseph has another dream of angelic counsel: King Herod is about to massacre all boys under the age two, having learned of the birth of a new “King”. Instead of staying put in Bethlehem or returning to Nazareth, Joseph takes his new family into exile in Egypt.

This reveals something about Joseph. Firstly, he is concerned for the safety of the little baby, who isn’t even his. Evidently he believes what the angel and Mary have told him, and he submits to being an agent in the story of the Incarnation. Secondly, Joseph is a man of courage who clearly can look after himself. His family cannot join a caravan to travel in safety; they are on the run. Joseph must feel confident that he can keep Mary and, more importantly, the infant Messiah safe, even on the dangerous roads through Gaza and the Sinai.

He navigates those hazardous circumstances and then safely leads his family to Nazareth, having been assured by an angel, in another dream, that it’s safe to return to the Galilean village.

In Nazareth Joseph worked as an artisan builder of some kind. Eurocentric translations of Scripture suggest that he was a carpenter, and even before that, in the 2nd century, Justin Martyr supposed that Jesus made yokes and ploughs, so the tradition of carpentry has become entrenched in our imagination. The Greek word used in the Gospels to describe his profession, however, is tekton, which indicates a skilled builder. Given the shortage of woods around Nazareth, it is possible that he worked with various materials, such as stone, iron and wood. When Jesus was old enough, Joseph trained him in his craft. It is quite possible that they worked in the construction of the city of Sepphoris, about 6km from Nazareth, which was still a small village.

Poverty of Holy Family

We don’t know the economic status of Joseph. He was a skilled artisan, and so able to provide for his family. But at the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, the couple could offer as a sacrifice only a pair of turtledoves, which was the option exercised by the poor.

We know that Joseph was an observant Jew who made the prescribed annual Passover pilgrimages to Jerusalem’s Temple. It is at the end of one such pilgrimage that we encounter Joseph a final time. Travelling home in a caravan, Mary and Joseph notice that Jesus has been left behind in Jerusalem. They return to the Holy City and after three days of frantic searching find him on the steps to the Temple, chewing the theological fat with religious teachers.

We do not know when Joseph died. The apocryphal History of Joseph the Carpenter from the 5th or 6th century suggests his death at the unlikely advanced age of 111, when Jesus was aged about 19. By the time we next meet Mary, at the wedding in Cana, Joseph is no longer present.

Devotion to St Joseph is first recorded in the 9th century and grew throughout the medieval age. In 1962, Pope John XXIII inserted St Joseph in the Canon of the Mass; in 2013, Pope Francis added his name to the three other Eucharistic prayers. Pope Francis also declared a Year of St Joseph, which ran from December 2020 to December 2021.

Since the 10th century, the principal feast day of St Joseph has been on March 19. In 1955, Pope Pius XII introduced the feast of St Joseph the Worker on May 1, coinciding with the International Workers’ Day on the same day.

Published in the March 2023 issue of The Southern Cross magazine