Joseph is a witness of God's faithfulness to our poor humanity

by Tarcisio Stramare

Called to be the Guardian of the Redeemer, "Joseph did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his bride with him" (Mt 1,24:XNUMX). In these words we have the compendium of what Saint Joseph is and what Saint Joseph did, that is, the description of the figure and mission of the Guardian of Jesus. The definition revolves around the term Redeemer, that is, Jesus the Redeemer of man, theme central to Christianity and dominant motif of Pope John Paul II's announcement.

By presenting Saint Joseph in the line of Redemption - remember the Encyclicals «Redemptor hominis» and «Redemptoris Mater» -, the Pontiff intends to underline that by carrying out «this pastoral duty» of offering for the consideration of the whole Church «some reflections on the One to whom God entrusted with the custody of his most precious treasures", he does not distance himself from "Christocentrism", as anyone who did not have an exact idea of ​​Saint Joseph might instinctively think. On the other hand, how could this Saint have overcome twenty centuries of history, or rather magnified in it, despite the "deliriums" of apocryphal literature, their undeserved acceptance and development in preaching, poorly nourished by theology, which in practice does not assign to Saint Joseph's rightful place in the teaching of Christology, Mariology and Spirituality? It must be said that the presence and function of Saint Joseph are firmly rooted in Christianity and that the long situation of stasis is only superficial and apparent! The immediate occasion of the Papal Document was the centenary of the publication of the Encyclical Epistle «Quamquam pluries» by Pope Leo XIII, but evidently the centuries-old veneration for Saint Joseph dates back to the Gospel itself; It is precisely by drawing inspiration from it that «the Fathers of the Church since the first centuries have underlined that Saint Joseph, as he had loving care of Mary and dedicated himself with joyful commitment to the education of Jesus, so he guards and protects his mystical body, the Church , of which the Holy Virgin is the figure and model". The reflections that the Apostolic Exhortation presents, in fact, are based above all on the evangelical episodes, soberly illustrated by the Fathers of the Church, both Eastern and Western, such as Irenaeus, Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Bernard and Saint Augustine, to limit ourselves to those expressly cited . The figure of Saint Joseph did not escape either the penetrating intelligence of Saint Thomas or the profound feeling of Saint Teresa of Avila, nor the "sensus fidei" of the entire people of God, who recognized him as "Patron of the universal Church", so it can be seen that «over the generations the Church reads this testimony in an increasingly attentive and conscious way, almost extracting from the treasure of this illustrious figure “things new and things old” (Mt 13,52)». What makes Saint Joseph an "outstanding figure" is that he "participated like no other human person, with the exception of Mary, the Mother of the Incarnate Word", in the mystery of the Incarnation. It follows that to the extent that we perceive the meaning of the mystery of the Incarnation, we also understand the importance of the figure of Saint Joseph, who «participated in it together with Mary, involved in the reality of the same event and was the custodian of the same love, therefore the power of the eternal Father "has predestined us to be his adopted children through Jesus Christ" (Eph 1, 5)». If the qualification of "guardian", with which the Apostolic Exhortation "Redemptoris Custos" opens, at first sight seems to assign to Saint Joseph an almost extrinsic role, even if not marginal, in the context of the redemptive plan, in reality the further determinations highlight a participation and involvement that «no other human person, with the exception of Mary» can boast: through his marriage to Mary «Saint Joseph came closer than anyone else ever to that very high dignity, for which the Mother of God far surpasses all creatures" and, furthermore, the relationship of fatherhood "places him as close as possible to Christ, the end of all election and predestination (cf. Rom 8, 28-29". The "custody" of Saint Joseph is, therefore, intimately connected to the mystery of the Incarnation, because it is exercised in the institution of marriage and in the exercise of fatherhood, aspects widely developed in the Apostolic Exhortation. A truly singular custody, with which we do not want to define Saint Joseph's extraneousness to the mystery, which actually involves him, but we want to underline precisely in this mystery the absolute sovereignty of divine action, to which man is called to collaborate out of pure condescension, almost more spectator than actor, since it is the incarnation of the Word, Redeemer of man. Man must lend his religious service to this divine work as a response to a free call. No protagonism, therefore, other than that of Jesus, who is the only Redeemer of man; but not even any exclusion of human collaboration, equally requested by God and determined by him through the "vocation". Paul VI, dealing with the union of divine action with human action in the great economy of the Redemption, rightly points out that "the first, the divine, is entirely sufficient in itself, but the second, the human, ours, although capable of nothing ( see Jn 15, 5), is never dispensed from a humble, but conditional and ennobling collaboration".