March: Month Dedicated to St. Joseph

Stained Glass Window by Sister Diane Couture, SSJ of St. Joseph and the Child Jesus.

While May is traditionally dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Catholic Church, March is dedicated to Mary’s spouse, St. Joseph.

With the solemn feast of St. Joseph falling on March 19th in the Church’s liturgical year, Catholics celebrate St. Joseph’s Day even when it falls during the season of Lent as it did this year. However, another saint, St. Patrick, gets a lot more media attention in our country than St. Joseph.

During his life on earth, St. Joseph stayed in the background and served Mary and Jesus as their protector and provider. Aside from the infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke’s Gospels, little is known about St. Joseph except that he was a carpenter/craftsman. Scholars say St. Joseph probably died between the years of Jesus being found in the Temple and the start of his public ministry. While devotion to Mary flourished in the early Church, devotion to St. Joseph did not really develop until the 17th and 18th centuries when religious congregations helped promote St. Joseph as a patron and intercessor.

Statue of St. Joseph the Worker inside Our Lady of Lourdes Convent Courtyard, St. Augustine, Florida.

In this Year of St. Joseph as declared by Pope Francis, let us recall the hidden life of St. Joseph and remember Joseph helped form the character of Jesus as his foster father. He must have been a lot more than merely a “just” man.

Among the saints who have had a special devotion to St. Joseph are St. Francis de Sales and St. Teresa of Avila, both of whom are Doctors of the Church.