Saint Joseph

APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION REDEMPTORIS CUSTOS
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF JOHN PAUL II ON THE FIGURE AND MISSION OF SAINT JOSEPH IN THE LIFE OF CHRIST AND THE CHURCH

PATRON OF THE CHURCH IN OUR TIME

28. In difficult times for the Church, Pius IX, wishing to place her under the special protection of the holy patriarch Joseph, declared him the “Patron of the Catholic Church” [42]. The Pontiff knew that this was not an isolated gesture, because, due to the sublime dignity granted by God to this faithful servant of his, “the Church, after the Blessed Virgin his Spouse, has always held St. Joseph in great honor and showered him with praise, and to him she has turned unceasingly in her distress” [43].

¿Cuáles son los motivos para tal confianza? León XIII los expone así: «Las razones por las que el bienaventurado José debe ser considerado especial Patrono de la Iglesia, y por las que a su vez, la Iglesia espera muchísimo de su tutela y patrocinio, nacen principalmente del hecho de que él es el esposo de María y padre putativo de Jesús (...). José, en su momento, fue el custodio legítimo y natural, cabeza y defensor de la Sagrada Familia (...). Es, por tanto, conveniente y sumamente digno del bienaventurado José que, lo mismo que entonces solía tutelar santamente en todo momento a la familia de Nazaret, así proteja ahora y defienda con su celeste patrocinio a la Iglesia de Cristo»[44].

29. This patronage must be invoked and is still necessary for the Church not only as a defense against emerging dangers, but also and above all as an encouragement in her renewed commitment to evangelization in the world and to re-evangelization in those “countries and nations, in which—as I wrote in the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles laici—religion and Christian life were once flourishing” and which “are now subjected to a harsh trial” [45]. To bring the first proclamation of Christ, and to bring it again to where it has been neglected or forgotten, the Church needs a special “power from on high” (cf. Lk 24:49; Acts 1:8), a gift certainly of the Spirit of the Lord, yet not disconnected from the intercession and example of her Saints.
30. Besides the certainty of his sure protection, the Church also trusts in Joseph's distinguished example; an example that transcends particular states of life and is proposed to the entire Christian Community, whatever the conditions and duties of each of the faithful may be.
31. The Church transforms these needs into prayer. And recalling that God entrusted the first mysteries of man’s salvation to the faithful custody of Saint Joseph, she asks him to grant her the ability to collaborate faithfully in the work of salvation, to give her a pure heart, like Saint Joseph, who gave himself entirely to serving the Incarnate Word, and that “by the example and intercession of Saint Joseph, a faithful and obedient servant, we may always live consecrated in justice and holiness” [48].

Hace ya cien años el Papa León XIII exhortaba al mundo católico a orar para obtener la protección de san José, patrono de toda la Iglesia. La Carta Encíclica Quamquam pluries se refería a aquel «amor paterno» que José «profesaba al niño Jesús»; a él, «próvido custodio de la Sagrada Familia» recomendaba la «heredad que Jesucristo conquistó con su sangre». Desde entonces, la Iglesia —como he recordado al comienzo— implora la protección de san José en virtud de «aquel sagrado vínculo que lo une a la Inmaculada Virgen María», y le encomienda todas sus preocupaciones y los peligros que amenazan a la familia humana. Aún hoy tenemos muchos motivos para orar con las mismas palabras de León XIII: «Aleja de nosotros, oh padre amantísimo, este flagelo de errores y vicios... Asístenos propicio desde el cielo en esta lucha contra el poder de las tinieblas ...; y como en otro tiempo libraste de la muerte la vida amenazada del niño Jesús, así ahora defiende a la santa Iglesia de Dios de las hostiles insidias y de toda adversidad»[49]. Aún hoy existen suficientes motivos para encomendar a todos los hombres a san José.

32. I ardently desire that this present commemoration of the figure of Saint Joseph may also renew in us the intensity of the prayer that my Predecessor recommended a century ago be addressed to him. This prayer and the very figure of Joseph acquire a renewed relevance for the Church of our time, in relation to the new Christian Millennium.

The just man, who carried with him the entire heritage of the Old Covenant, has also been introduced into the “beginning” of the new and eternal Covenant in Jesus Christ. May he show us the path of this saving Covenant, already at the threshold of the coming Millennium, during which the “fullness of time,” which belongs to the ineffable mystery of the Incarnation of the Word, must endure and develop further. May Saint Joseph obtain for the Church and for the world, as well as for each one of us, the blessing of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Given in Rome, at Saint Peter's, on August 15, the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, in the year 1989, the eleventh of my Pontificate.

Saint John Henry Newman