How consoled the Divine Infant, resting for the first time in the manly and paternal lap of St. Joseph! From eternity, he had been prepared to be the representation of God the Father next to the Son who had become incarnate. He was the perfect father: of immaculate holiness, full of affection, eager to educate, solicitous to protect and support in every need
Newsroom (18/03/2025 21:30, Gaudium Press) Many souls throughout the centuries have been moved to consider the joy and wonder of the Child of God cradled for the first time in the maternal arms of Mary Most Holy. How much joy Baby Jesus must have felt at that moment, seeing himself enveloped in the purest love of His Holy Mother, created by God to become incarnate in her and to redeem mankind, restoring the work of creation!
Few, however, remember contemplating the consolation the Divine Infant took when He rested for the first time in the manly and affectionate lap of his virginal father who, although he had not begotten him according to the flesh, had been chosen by the Heavenly Father to be his representation with the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity who became Man.
The figure of Joseph in the kaleidoscope of the Old Testament
Like Mary Most Holy, the Holy Patriarch was prefigured several times in the Old Testament, as he was closely linked to the mystery of the Incarnation. In fact, throughout the millennia that preceded the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ, God the Father was ‘modelling’ and ‘idealizing’ the image of the perfect man and father, which would later blossom into the exalted figure of St. Joseph.
When we read the Sacred Scriptures, we marvel at the holiness of righteous Abel, who offered God the first fruits of his flock and inaugurated divine worship (cf. Gen 4:1-4); or at the faithfulness of Noah who, having believed in God’s word, built an ark to save the animals of every species and the elect from the punishment of the flood (cf. Gen 6:8-22).
Abraham, too, already an old man, received a promise from God: the birth of a son whose posterity would be more numerous than the sands of the seashore and the stars of the sky (cf. Gen 15:4-5). Because he believed, he gave birth to Isaac with Sarah, who until then had been barren, and whom the Lord Himself would later demand be offered as a sacrifice… O sublime proof of faith and fidelity! Willing to fulfil the divine command, Abraham first sacrificed his father’s heart! And from this act of supreme love for God blossomed the fulfilment of the promise made to him (cf. Gen 22:1-18).
Jacob, the son of Isaac, a beloved man to whom God revealed that he would descend to earth by a mysterious ladder that his posterity would know (cf. Gen 28:10-14), begot several sons, among whom Joseph stood out, who was sold into Egypt by his brothers and ended up becoming, after many difficulties, the governor and dispenser of all Pharaoh’s goods (cf. Gen 41:37-45).
A little further on, we see the choice of Moses to free the Hebrew people from Egyptian slavery and receive the covenant and the Tablets of the Law from God on Mount Sinai. Scripture praises him admirably: ‘There arose no prophet in Israel like Moses, with whom the Lord talked face to face’ (Deut 34:10).
Let us also consider Elijah, the fiery man who never agreed with the deviations of his time (cf. 1 Kings 18:2046), being the spiritual father of the prophets and of the line of faithful souls who will last until the consummation of the ages.
All these lawmen were created to keep the seed of integrity and holiness alive throughout the millennia in the chosen people – so often unfaithful to their mission – culminating in the coming of the Messiah. To do this, they had to prefigure the person and virtues of the man par excellence who, intimately united to the mystery of the Incarnation, would be the human father of the awaited Saviour.
Elevated in anticipation of the coming Redemption
Chosen by the Holy Spirit to be the spouse of Our Lady and the father of Jesus Christ, the Glorious Patriarch was clothed with an incomparable plenitude of graces and gifts that would help him fulfil his very high mission.
Underneath the veils of his humility were hidden exalted virtues, granted in anticipation of the merits of the Redemption, of which Mary was the shining dawn. In fact, because of his closeness to Her, Joseph was the first to benefit from all the marvels and riches that emanated from the Queen of the Universe.
It was no wonder, then, that all the virtues that adorned the souls of the Old Testament Saints were super-eminently found in him, and that the contemplation of these virtues constituted a true paradise for the Divine Infant throughout the hidden life of the Holy Family.
Seeing in his father the excellences of the promise
While still in His mother’s cloister, the Eternal Word contemplated in His father’s soul a generosity greater than Abel’s, for if the latter offered the Lord the first fruits of his flock, St. Joseph, deciding to flee because he felt unworthy of the mystery that surrounded the Blessed Virgin, sacrificed to God the greatest of all gifts: living with Her.
Seeing the love and affection with which St. Joseph cared for his Bride, the Redeemer was also moved to consider that to him, like a new Noah, God the Father had entrusted the Ark that had brought salvation to humanity; the one that was the imperishable divine Rainbow uniting Heaven and earth.
Faith, which was Abraham’s crowning glory in the midst of the greatest perplexities, shone with even greater brilliance in the soul of the Holy Patriarch in each of the trials and difficulties he faced during Jesus’ life. Seeing him hunger and thirst, suffer the inclemencies of the weather or even be forced to flee from Herod, among many other contingencies, he firmly believed in His divinity, filling his beloved Son’s soul with delight.
‘What’s more, he knows that the life of Our Lady and, even more so, the life of Our Lord Jesus Christ are dedicated to saving people, and he associates himself with this redemptive purpose. It’s not possible that, being so close to Jesus and Mary, he did not know God’s plans for the Passion. Contemplating this mystery with deep interiority and a prophetic spirit, even before Our Lord publicly revealed that He was the Redeemer, St. Joseph already discerned it. And as His father on earth, he accepted the Heavenly Father’s determination in silence and with authentic resignation, ready, like Abraham, to see his Son sacrificed on the altar of the Cross.’
The holy conversations between His parents often reminded the Divine Child of the dream of the Patriarch Jacob, because they were truly the ladder by which God had descended to earth. And remembering also the dream of Joseph of Egypt (cf. Gen 37:9) in which the sun, moon and stars prostrated themselves before him, He saw that, in a spiritual sense, this omen was being fulfilled in His father Joseph, who was fully obeyed by Himself, the Sun of Justice, His Mother and, in the future, the whole Glorious Church.
Listening to His virginal father tell Him about the other exploits of Joseph of Egypt, He reflected that this righteous man, ‘in the house of Putiphar, gave a remarkable proof of heroic chastity; however, he ended up relegated for a while to the obscurity of a dungeon and was almost forgotten. The second Joseph gave a much more sublime example of angelic virginity, betrothed as he was to the purest of all virgins,’ and yet he did not go down to any prison, but was elevated “to the noblest seats in the House of the Lord and in the Court of Heaven”.
During his thirty years of hidden life, Jesus certainly considered St. Joseph to be more exalted than Moses, because if the latter spoke to God as a man speaks to his friend (cf. Num 12:8), the latter lived daily with the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity as a father does with his son! On the other hand, he would also be more glorious than the prophet Elijah, since he would lead not only a line of the righteous, but the elect of all history, as Patriarch and Protector of the Holy Catholic Church.
What was Our Lord’s delight, at the age of twelve, to see St. Joseph’s ‘elitist’ strength of soul manifested, for example, in the episode of the loss and the encounter in the Temple? In this, the little Jesus saw two extremes of heroism in His father: on the one hand, the zeal he showed in defending the Child-God against the Doctors of the Law; on the other, his ineffable trust in accepting with complete fidelity a ‘reproach’ from his own Divine Son, even though he did not fully understand it: ‘Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?’ (Lk 2:49).
As Mgr. John Scognamiglio Clá Dias teaches us, ‘God allowed the loss and finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple in order to dispel the mistaken idea that man’s life should be prosperous, without setbacks or difficulties, without surprises or contradictions. […] There is a kind of test that God asks of those He calls the most: that of feeling apparently deceived and abandoned by Him, so that even what constitutes His ideal, His consolation and reason for being, sometimes seems to use a subterfuge to escape His company. Faithfulness in this torment makes these chosen ones true heroes. […] Now, of St. Joseph we can say that, on this occasion, he became the hero of trust’.
For such a Son, a perfect father!
Undoubtedly, in all these events in the life of the Holy Family, as well as those that we will only know in Heaven, the Child God was showing more and more love for His virginal father, the alter ego of His Divine Father, with an affection and admiration never known throughout history.
He was the perfect father: of immaculate holiness, full of affection, eager to educate, solicitous to protect and support, strong and courageous, a support in every need and danger!
Let us too follow in the footsteps of the Child Jesus: let us admire, love and trust unreservedly in the protection and support of St. Joseph, the perfect father and ever-faithful friend who will lead us, amidst the battles of life, to the Kingdom of Mary, to the Kingdom of Heaven!
Text taken from the magazine Heralds of the Gospel March 2024. By Sr. Clotilde Thaliane Neuburger, EP
Compiled by Sandra Chisholm
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