‘St. Joseph reminds us that those who appear hidden or in the shadows can play an incomparable role in the history of salvation ...’
By Joseph Pronechen/National Catholic Register
“I like St. Joseph very much. He’s a strong man of silence,” Pope Francis told families during his 2015 trip to the Philippines.
His next words opened another way to pray for the intercession of St. Joseph.
“I would also like to tell you something very personal. I have great love for St. Joseph, because he is a man of silence and strength. On my table I have an image of St. Joseph sleeping. Even when he is asleep, he is taking care of the Church! Yes! We know that he can do that. So when I have a problem, a difficulty, I write a little note and I put it underneath St. Joseph, so that he can dream about it! In other words, I tell him: ‘Pray for this problem!’”
Immediately, to follow the Pope’s example, the faithful began looking for a “Sleeping St. Joseph” statue to go and do likewise. (Find options at EWTN Religious Catalogue.)
Josephite Papacy
At the beginning of his papacy, Francis’ devotion to St. Joseph became well known. On March 19, 2013, the Solemnity of St. Joseph, in his homily during the Mass for his inauguration of his pontificate, the Pope highlighted several qualities of this great saint to learn about and emulate.
“How does Joseph exercise his role as protector? Discreetly, humbly and silently, but with an unfailing presence and utter fidelity, even when he finds it hard to understand. … In him we learn how to respond to God’s call, readily and willingly, but we also see the core of the Christian vocation, which is Christ! Let us protect Christ in our lives, so that we can protect others, so that we can protect creation!”
Francis continued, “In the Gospels, St. Joseph appears as a strong and courageous man, a working man, yet in his heart we see great tenderness, which is not the virtue of the weak but rather a sign of strength of spirit and a capacity for concern, for compassion, for genuine openness to others, for love. We must not be afraid of goodness, of tenderness!”
In 2022, the Holy Father explained, “I always considered it a kindness from heaven to be able to begin my Petrine ministry on March 19,” adding that he thought “in some way St. Joseph wanted to tell me that he would continue to help me, to be beside me, and I would be able to continue to think of him as a friend I could turn to, whom I could trust, whom I could ask to intercede and pray for me.”
The first decree of a liturgical nature that Francis proclaimed came on May 1, 2013, the feast of St. Joseph the Worker, when he decreed the name of St. Joseph should be added to Eucharistic Prayers II, III and IV, after the name of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as they appear in the third typical edition of the Roman Missal.
Two months later, on July 9, with Benedict XVI also present, he consecrated Vatican City to St. Joseph and St. Michael the Archangel.
More recently, to honor the 150th anniversary of the proclamation of Blessed Pius IX naming St. Joseph the “Patron of the Universal Church,” on Dec. 8, 2020, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Francis issued his apostolic letter Patris Corde (With a Father’s Heart). Then he announced the first-ever Year of St. Joseph to run from Dec. 8, 2020, to Dec. 8, 2021.
‘With a Father’s Heart’
The aim of his apostolic letter was “to increase our love for this great saint, to encourage us to implore his intercession and to imitate his virtues and his zeal.”
Listing categories of unsung people in our world, Francis made this connection: “Each of us can discover in Joseph — the man who goes unnoticed, a daily, discreet and hidden presence — an intercessor, a support and a guide in times of trouble. St. Joseph reminds us that those who appear hidden or in the shadows can play an incomparable role in the history of salvation.”
“Joseph, then, teaches us that faith in God includes believing that he can work even through our fears, our frailties and our weaknesses,” he added. “He also teaches us that amid the tempests of life, we must never be afraid to let the Lord steer our course. At times, we want to be in complete control, yet God always sees the bigger picture.”
To further highlight the example for all, Francis explained, “Joseph set aside his own ideas in order to accept the course of events and, mysterious as they seemed, to embrace them, take responsibility for them and make them part of his own history.”
But, he counseled, “Joseph is certainly not passively resigned, but courageously and firmly proactive. In our own lives, acceptance and welcome can be an expression of the Holy Spirit’s gift of fortitude. … Joseph’s attitude encourages us to accept and welcome others as they are, without exception, and to show special concern for the weak, for God chooses what is weak (1 Corinthians 1:27).”
Francis tied his constant concern for those on the fringes to his favored intercession. “I consider St. Joseph the special patron of all those forced to leave their native lands because of war, hatred, persecution and poverty. From St. Joseph, we must learn that same care and responsibility.”
As a devotee of St. Joseph, he succinctly added, “Joseph found happiness not in mere self-sacrifice but in self-gift. In him, we never see frustration but only trust. His patient silence was the prelude to concrete expressions of trust.”
Sharing St. Joseph
From Nov. 17, 2021, to the end of that year, Pope Francis gave the faithful at his general audiences much to think and pray about as he reflected on devotion to St. Joseph. In the first audience of that series, he said, “Joseph, who is a carpenter from Nazareth and who trusts in God’s plan for his young fiancée and for himself, reminds the Church to fix her gaze on what the world deliberately ignores. Today Joseph teaches us this: ‘Do not look so much at the things that the world praises, look into the corners, look in the shadows, look at the peripheries, at what the world does not want.’ He reminds each of us to give importance to what others discard. In this sense he is truly a master of the essential: He reminds us that what truly matters does not attract our attention, but requires patient discernment to be discovered and appreciated. To discover what matters.”
He added: “Let us ask him to intercede so that the whole Church may recover this insight, this ability to discern, this ability to evaluate what is essential.”
The next week, Francis emphasized that everyone, no matter how obscure to the world they may seem, is important, explaining that St. Joseph “reminds us that all those who are seemingly hidden or in the ‘second row’ are unparalleled protagonists in the history of salvation. The world needs these men and women: men and women in the second row, but who support the development of our life, of every one of us, and who with prayer, and by their example, with their teaching, sustain us on the path of life.”
Sharing more about St. Joseph and his silence, Pope France reminded, “Joseph’s silence is … a silence full of listening, an industrious silence, a silence that brings out his great interiority. … [L]et us learn from St. Joseph how to cultivate spaces for silence in which another Word can emerge, that is, Jesus, the Word: that of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, and that Jesus brings. …This is why we must learn from Joseph to cultivate silence: that space of interiority in our days in which we give the Spirit the opportunity to regenerate us, to console us, to correct us.”
“Joseph combined silence with action,” Francis also said.
This is likely why Francis told the Filipino families a decade ago, like Joseph, we are to rise with Jesus and Mary. “Those precious moments of repose, of resting with the Lord in prayer, are moments we might wish to prolong. But like St. Joseph, once we have heard God’s voice, we must rise from our slumber; we must get up and act (Romans 13:11).”
Francis concluded the 2021 reflections with this major instruction from Joseph: “The lesson Joseph leaves us with today is this: Life always holds adversities in store for us, this is true, and faced with them, we may also feel threatened and afraid … we can overcome certain moments … by acting like Joseph, who reacts to fear with the courage to trust in God’s Providence.”
Lesson in Trust
Throughout his pontificate, the Pope has highlighted the example of Joseph’s life — including this year, before his long hospitalization.
“Joseph trusts in God; he accepts God’s dream of his life and that of his betrothed,” the Pope explained in his Jan. 29, 2025, audience. “He thus enters into the grace of one who knows how to live the divine promise with faith, hope and love.
“Joseph, in all of this, does not utter a word, but he believes, hopes and loves. He does not express himself with ‘idle words,’ but with concrete deeds. He belongs to the lineage of those who, according to the apostle James, ‘put the Word into practice’ (cf. James 1:22), translating it into deeds, flesh, life. Joseph trusts in God and obeys.”
