Today, May 1, the Church celebrates St. Joseph the Worker. It is often remarked of Joseph that Scripture records none of his words. While it is true that no direct word of Joseph’s is recorded in Scripture, it is from Joseph’s own lips that the name of Jesus, the name announced privately to Mary and in a dream to Joseph, is first announced publicly among the people of Israel: “And he [Joseph] named him Jesus.” (Matthew 1:25)
Joseph, as we know, was not the natural father of Jesus. But Joseph, on behalf of the God-child’s true Father, gave him the name by which the world would know him: Jesus. And it was in the home of Joseph that the Incarnate Word practiced obedience: “He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart.”
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