Saint Joseph

Before we put Christmas back up in the attic I got thinking about how much different Saint Joseph’s life was compared to ours, and he’s often overlooked so I thought I’d share my thoughts on him. First of all, he asked Mary, who had never sinned, to marry him. So technically the saying about marital differences of opinion that “someone is always wrong and the other is the wife” basically does pertain specifically to Joseph who really was the only married man on the planet who can ever unequivocally say he actually was always in the wrong. He could argue that he was a saint after all, but she still trumped even that! He literally can’t win. Also, I can’t fathom the pressure he felt with his wife, who was chosen by God, went into labor riding on a donkey through the desert with no Holiday Inns in sight? No ubers, no airlines, no GPS or texting, no air bnb’s. The best he could find was a stable? He probably felt really bad and very responsible for the less than accommodating accommodations that required him to actually deliver the son of God himself. Holy pressure. I hope they took some Lamaze classes or watched a video or something about what to do. The easy part about being married to the perfect wife and having the perfect and also sinless son is that I’m sure there was more peace and a lot less problems, but he did lose their 12-year-old son Jesus when they were caravanning with friends and family across the lands. Can you imagine being the guy who loses God’s son for three whole days without an amber alert system in place to help? That’s a big oops. Holy panic. You had one child to do the head count for when the group left the city, and that didn’t happen? Yikes. How nervous must he have been? He can’t even talk his way out of it; he knows God witnessed the whole thing and probably just shook his head in disbelief. His stepson’s Dad is literally the ultimate judge and jury, so it’s game over basically. I’m sure he heard some prior wrath of God, Old Testament stories that made him a little nervous. Of course his son stayed behind to give counsel and preach in a church full of people who were amazed at his knowledge and what he had to say, so Joseph couldn’t even really be mad at that. All he could really say to that is just give me a heads-up next time. That also had to be hard that his son was probably infinitely wiser than he was, so Joseph must’ve felt that he really had nothing to teach his son. Although Saint Joseph did build a gorgeous spiral stair case without any nails or glue that baffles architects to this day because of how functional it is with no support whatsoever while using an unknown wood source….so he did have some mad carpenter skills I’m sure he had him apprentice through. Plus he taught him people can love a child like their own, even while getting no fanfare when the rest of the family gets unprecedented media coverage for thousands of years. To Saint Joseph and all the amazing step-parents who feel the pressure on all sides at times but choose to do the right thing even when nobody is watching or acknowledging it, you are very much appreciated and loved!