A few years ago while at home
from the Philippines I was celebrating Sunday Mass in Blanchardstown,
Dublin, when I noticed a family coming in a little late. I realised the parents
were Filipinos. They came right up to the front of the church. What touched me
was that the husband/father was carrying the couple’s infant.
In November 2014 I was in the pre-departure area of Incheon Airport, Seoul, for a flight back to Manila. I saw a Filipino father with his son who clearly had just recently learned to walk and was taking sheer delight in running around. He wasn’t disturbing anyone as there was plenty of space. The child’s father stayed at a distance, moving around and keeping an eye on his son while giving him space. I can imagine St Joseph doing exactly the same with the Child Jesus when he had just learned to walk.
Philippe de Champaigne’s painting shows St Joseph carrying Jesus into the temple, just as the young Filipino father carried his infant child to the church in Dublin that Sunday morning.
In his book Jesus of Nazareth, The Infancy Narratives
Pope Benedict quotes Matthew 1:21: [Mary]
will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. The Pope
then writes, Together with the
instruction to take Mary as his wife, Joseph is asked to give a name to the
child and thus legally to adopt it as his.
St Joseph was the legal father of Jesus according
to Jewish law, much more than a foster father, important though such a person
may be in the lives of many.
The Church honours St Joseph on 19 March as ‘Saint
Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary.’ That is his greatest title, the one
also used in the Eucharistic Prayers of the Mass. It was as husband of
Mary that he was known as the father of
Jesus – and was a real father to him.
Below is a video of one of the best talks on
fatherhood I have ever heard. It was given during an online conference
organised by the Legion of Mary in Dublin on the theme of St Joseph. The
speaker, Mickey Harte, is a national and successful figure in Ireland in Gaelic
Football, a major sport that is native to the country. Ten years ago his daughter
Michaela was murdered on her honeymoon in Mauritius aged 27. He speaks about
her briefly during his talk.
It
is also clear that Mickey learned how to be a father from his own father. I have
seen the same in my own family. He also suggests that if we know of a family
that doesn’t have a father-figure to ‘adopt’ that family in the sense of
praying specifically for them to St Joseph that they will find such a figure.
He also points out that it is a manly thing to pray and how he learned from his father to be the leader in family prayer.
Collect of the
Mass of Saint Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Grant, we pray, almighty God,
that by Saint Joseph’s intercession
your Church may constantly watch over
the unfolding of the mysteries of human salvation,
whose beginnings you entrusted to his faithful care.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
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