March 18, 2026
At the risk of upsetting my many Irish cousins this week of St. Patrick’s Day, I hold up to you a saint even grander, the man closest to Jesus, to whom even glorious St. Patrick would defer…
He’s the earthly father of Our Savior, the only begotten Son of God; he’s the faithful and chaste husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary; he’s in the lineage of King David, and in Nazareth, when asked, “Where’s your family come from?” would reply, “A little town called Bethlehem.”
He’s St. Joseph … and March 19 is his feast day.
In the parishes I was thrilled to serve as a young priest back home in St. Louis, we’d bless loaves of freshly baked bread after Mass on that day, “St. Joseph’s bread,” we’d call it. The people would bring them home to the doors of the homebound and the poor, because Joseph was the “breadwinner” for that Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
Renowned is he for his silence. The Gospels record not one single word from the mouth of the man the evangelists call “just.” For him “actions speak louder than words.” He wisely left the talking to his wife and son.
For Joseph, it was duty, responsibility, that counted, a mission given him as a faithful Jew to heed God’s will and trust in His design, however these plans might bewilder him.
And his duty was to his wife and his boy. They were the center of his life. Let them get the attention, he resolves, as he looms often forgotten in the background of the Christmas manger.
His responsibility was to love them, protect them, provide for them, as he did when he led them as refugees from a murderously wicked king in Jerusalem to safety abroad in Egypt.
His vocation was to be there for them. As a carpenter, his labor was not the drive of his life, but a means to a noble end: tender care for his little family. His job was not his passion. His wife and boy were.
Like the Patriarch, Joseph, he was a dreamer, as the Lord coaxed and guided him, whispering in revery, after which he would “come to” and, in the words of the Bible, “do exactly as the angel had directed him.”
That divine will, not his own logic, preferences, or self-centered plans, would prompt and inspire him. For St. Joseph, it was all about God, his wife, his child, his family… not himself.
How blessed are those who can claim one like St. Joseph as a dad, a husband.
That divine design could be confusing at times, at one time about life and happiness, then soon after about death and setback.
So one day a rabbi would ask him as a woodworker to “carve a table fit for a king,” the ancient legend goes, upon which in the future a great teacher would celebrate the Passover with his disciples and friends.
And later, a gruff Roman soldier came into the carpenter shop to demand he construct a cross out of two pieces of lumber, upon which a man claiming to be “from God,” would be crucified.
St. Joseph, pray for us!
†Timothy Michael Cardinal Dolan