Year of St. Joseph

The special motives for which St. Joseph has been proclaimed patron of the Church—and for which the Church looks for singular benefit from his patronage and protection—are that Joseph was the spouse of Mary and that he was reputed the father of Jesus Christ. From these sources have sprung his dignity, grace, holiness, and glory. The dignity of the Mother of God is so lofty that nothing created can rank above it.

But as Joseph has been united to the Blessed Virgin by the ties of marriage, it may not be doubted that he approached nearer than anyone else to the eminent dignity by which the Mother of God so nobly surpasses all created natures. For marriage is the most intimate of all unions, which from its essence imparts a community of gifts between those joined together by it. Thus, in giving Joseph the Blessed Virgin as spouse, God appointed him to be, not only her life's companion, the witness of her maidenhood, the protector of her honor, but also, by virtue of the conjugal tie, a participator in her sublime dignity.

Joseph shines among all mankind by the most august dignity, since by divine will he was the guardian of the Son of God and reputed as His father among men.

From this twofold dignity flowed the obligation which nature lays upon the heads of families, so that Joseph became the guardian, administrator, and legal defender of the divine house whose head he was. He set himself to protect with a mighty love and a daily solicitude his spouse and the divine Infant; regularly by his work he earned what was necessary for the one and the other for nourishment and clothing; he guarded from death the Child threatened by a monarch's jealousy, and found for Him a refuge; in the miseries of the journey and in the bitterness of exile he was ever the companion, the helper, and the upholder of the Virgin and of Jesus.

Now the divine house which Joseph ruled with the authority of a father contained within its limits the scarce-born Church. From the very fact that the most holy Virgin is the mother of Jesus Christ she is the mother of all Christians, whom she bore on Mount Calvary in the painful throes of the Redemption; Jesus Christ is, in a manner, the Firstborn of Christians, who by adoption and redemption are His brothers.

Therefore the blessed patriarch looks upon the multitude of Christians who make up the Church as confided especially to his trust—this limitless family spread over the earth, over which, because he is the spouse of Mary and the father of Jesus Christ, he holds, as it were, a paternal authority. It is, then, natural and worthy that as the blessed Joseph ministered to all the needs of the family at Nazareth and girt it about with his protection, he should now cover with the cloak of his heavenly patronage and defend the Church of Jesus Christ.

Leo XIII