Bishop Solis' Message on the Closing of the Year of St. Joseph

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This image of St. Joseph can be found in the Cathedral of the Madeleine.

Dec. 8, which is the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, will also mark the end of the Year of St. Joseph that Pope Francis declared with his 2020 apostolic letter Patris Corde. The yearlong celebration of the 150th anniversary of the proclamation of Saint Joseph as Patron Saint of the Universal Church has been a tremendous blessing for the Catholic faithful. Our society, which lacks role models of moral and spiritual virtue, rediscovered a model who offers a greater alternative or a choice for a more meaningful life in the world.

For a full year, we had the wonderful opportunity to pray and to reflect on the virtuous life of St. Joseph. There were vast resources and helpful information about his character, despite how little the Bible tells us about him. As Pope Francis wrote in Patris Corde, “the greatness of Saint Joseph is that he was the spouse of Mary and the foster father of Jesus. … After Mary, the Mother of God, no saint is mentioned more frequently in the papal magisterium than Joseph, her spouse.”

Furthermore, the Holy Father mentioned several laudable characteristics of St. Joseph as a father that we should strive to possess, saying that St. Joseph was tender and loving toward his adopted son, was obedient to God’s will, was accepting of God’s plan and accepted responsibility for his part in that plan, was creatively courageous in finding ways to deal with the difficulties he faced, worked hard to provide a living for his family, and never made himself the center of things, did not think of himself but focused instead on the lives of Mary and Jesus.

As Father Jorge Roldan said in his presentation at the diocesan Advent retreat last weekend, St. Joseph “was a man with great integrity, a silent man who understood the sanctity of his marriage and that God is the one who guides our lives.”

It is entirely fitting that our Church dedicated a year to honor St. Joseph. His exemplary obedience and selfless surrender to God’s will was instrumental to the fulfilment of the greatest mystery, the Incarnation – when Jesus Christ, the Son of God, dwelt among us to be our Savior. It is a relevant message for the present culture that denies and pushes God away from our lives and from the world, with its indifference to the sanctity of lifeand  the dignity of every human person, and its onslaught on the sacredness of marriage and the holiness of family life.

Confronted by the ongoing pandemic, war in various regions of the world and other challenges, Pope Francis, in his message last November, offered the example of St. Joseph as a witness and as a source of hope, support, guidance and consolation. “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,” the Holy Father wrote.

As the Year of St. Joseph ends, we can still benefit by imitating his virtue and, in particular, adopting his vocation. As Fr. Stephen Tilley noted in his presentation at the diocesan Advent retreat, “Joseph’s ultimate vocation was to love and adore Jesus,” and this is what we are called to do as well. Let us continue to fix our gaze on Christ this Advent season, and may our devotion to St. Joseph help us to find the love, joy and peace that Christ brings.