The Importance of St. Joseph
Graduation Date
Summer 1966
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Document Form
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Degree Granting Institution
Catholic University of America
Program Name
Humanities
Abstract
On December 8, 1870, Pius IX proclaimed St. Joseph the Patron of the Universal Church. This solemn proclamation initiated a more precise recognition Joseph’s rightful status in the Church. It seemed to be the official call of Christ*s Vicar for renewed efforts on the part of the faithful to promulgate greater public devotion to the Saint through research, writings and liturgy. Though Joseph, Saint of the Scriptures, had been an object of universal faith of the Christian world from the earliest days of the Church, devotion to him had remained somewhat a matter of private veneration. God, however, brings saints to the fore as the Mystical Body has need of them. In His Wisdom and Providence, He "was pleased to choose blessed Joseph" during our crucial times as the saint of social justice and of the workingman; an exemplar to heads of families and to In both the virginal and the married states. Thus, since the proclamation 1870, theologians have turned their attention to a more intensive study of the place of Joseph in the divine economy of the redemptive Incarnation.
Since the status of St. Joseph accrues from his two-fold dignity, virginal spouse and virginal fatherhood, Josephology, or the theology of St. Joseph is a part of that theological science which, beginning with revealed principles, studies the holy patriarch as the spouse of the Mother of God, the virginal Father of Jesus, together with all the graces and privlileges derived from this twofold vocation. It in a part of Catholic theology, which studies all things under the aspect of God: either because they are God Himself or creatures delated to God as their beginning and end. It is intimately associated with the treatise on the Incarnate Word and Mariology.
The purpose of this study is to analyse the position of St. Joseph as recognized by the teaching and praying Church. We will attempt to show that the Church, a continuation of the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation, St. Joseph holds a unique position because his predestination was singularly associated with Christ’s predestination to divine Sonship and Mary’s predestination to divine maternity. This divine predestination is the source of his great dignity, holiness and glory.