ST. JOSEPH 
 
 Model of Fidelity 
 
 A Paulist Father 
 
 New York 
 
 THE PAULIST PRESS 
 401 West 59th Street 
 
Copyright. 1915, by “The Missionary Society of 
 St. Paul the Apostle in the State 
 of New York.’' 
 
“St. Joseph’s arms were the cradle of Our Lord's Infancy and 
 
 Youthr 
 
St. Joseph, Model of Fidelity 
 
 “Who (thinkegt thou) is that faithful and wise steward 
 who the Lord hath set over his household?” (Luke xii. 42). 
 
 NDERNEATH the words of our Lord, and 
 the simple narrative of His earthly life, there 
 lie concealed many mysterious truths. These 
 can be reached only by thinking much about 
 them: thus, when St. Gabriel had made known to our 
 Blessed Lady the mystery of the Incarnation, she is said 
 to have “ kept his zvords pondering over them in her 
 heart.’ 1 We find an illustration of this in the natural 
 world. Look up into the sky on a clear night and you 
 will see thousands of bright stars, but do you 
 see all that are there? Keep your eye fixed for a few 
 moments longer, and one after another the vacant spots 
 will fill up, until you see double the number you saw 
 at first. Take a telescope and you will discover as many 
 more which your eye, unaided, is unable to see. So it is 
 in the supernatural world; some truths of revelation lie 
 upon the surface, others are reached only by meditation 
 and study. There are still others which are reserved for 
 such as are leading saintly lives, as our Lord has taught 
 us in saying, “ Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall 
 see God 
 
 These remarks will help us to understand why St. 
 Joseph who is so much honored among Catholics, should 
 be practically unknown to Protestants. Scripture char 
 
4 
 
 St. Joseph, Model of Fidelity 
 
 acters both of the Old and New Testaments furnish 
 models of Christian virtues for their pulpits, but St. 
 Joseph is never among them. They do not study his 
 character, and pass him by because so little is said of him. 
 That little said of him in the Gospel is, however, enough 
 to establish his claim to privileges and virtues of the high¬ 
 est order. I invite you to consider with me some points 
 which I think will enable you to realize this. 
 
 St. Joseph’s place among men was an obscure one. 
 By descent indeed he was noble. He belonged to the 
 royal house of David. But God willed that he should be 
 obscure, and therefore stripped him of all the circum¬ 
 stance of nobility. He lived in retirement, and found his 
 occupation for the most part in domestic duties. We 
 sometimes hear of a valued steward in a nobleman’s 
 family whose integrity of character and prudence are 
 so great that the management of the entire establishment 
 is entrusted to his care. St. Joseph filled such a place 
 as this in the Holy Family. His'associates were those 
 who were his superiors; namely, the Eternal Word made 
 Flesh and His Blessed Mother. The constant, anxious 
 care of these was to be the duty of his life. He was to 
 do nothing that would give him a prominence among men. 
 The daily companion of those two precious “ Wards ” of 
 his, what memoirs he might have written had he lifted 
 the veil from these mysterious thirty years of their lives, 
 almost every hour of which he could recall! 
 
 Yet St. Joseph was not to be an Evangelist! Nor 
 was he an Apostle. His work was done before our Lord 
 entered upon His ministry. Nor was he a martyr; either 
 in reality, by giving up His life for Christ, or by com¬ 
 passion in the sense that our Lady is called the Queen 
 of Martyrs; namely, by her sufferings with our Lord at 
 
St. Joseph, Model of Fidelity 5 
 
 the foot of the cross. His responsibility stood to him in 
 lieu of martyrdom, in virtue of which our Lord spared 
 him the anguish of His Passion. Love and suffering 
 seem to have been inseparable in the Saints, and the 
 time came when St. Joseph’s gentle spirit could no longer 
 bear its double load. Other saints have experienced this; 
 as for example St. Philip Neri. Just before the feast of 
 Pentecost^he was praying very earnestly for the gifts of 
 the Holy Spirit. He was alone in the Catacombs, that 
 sanctuary of the martyrs, underneath the city of Rome. 
 Suddenly his soul became so inflamed with the love of 
 God, that he threw himself upon the ground and tore open 
 his cassock in order to cool his heart, which seemed to be 
 on fire. With love such as this, St. Joseph was calmly 
 consumed; and he died as he had lived, in obscurity, and 
 known only as the carpenter of Nazareth. 
 
 It was to serve a special purpose that our Lord made 
 St. Joseph to be thus obscure in station. He willed that 
 His own honor should be obscure upon earth. The light 
 was to shine in darkness, and the darkness was not to 
 comprehend it, as St. John tells us. A chosen few, as 
 for example, the Shepherds, the Wise Men from the East, 
 St. Elizabeth, the infant St. John and the holy old man 
 Simeon, recognized in Him their promised Messias; but 
 the Jews as a people did not know Him. There was in¬ 
 deed to be “ a day of His power ” when He should be 
 lifted up to the gaze of all people, but it was not in St. 
 Joseph’s lifetime. The Blessed Virgin, jealous of the de¬ 
 lay, asked Him to manifest His power at the marriage 
 feast in Cana of Galilee, but His answer was, " My hour 
 is not yet come.” It was not until the evening of Holy 
 Thursday, just before His arrest in the Garden of Geth- 
 semane, that our Lord exclaimed, " Father, the hour is 
 
6 St. Joseph, Model of Fidelity 
 
 come?” Yes, in His Passion and Death He was made 
 known to the world. Then it was that the Roman guard 
 cried out, “Truly this was the Son of God.” But all 
 through life our Lord was hidden, and St. Joseph’s hum¬ 
 ble station was His concealment. He was the carpenter’s 
 Son. 
 
 Humble as was St. Joseph’s place among men, before 
 God he held a very exalted one. He was a steward to 
 whose care God had committed His two most precious 
 treasures. The first of these, in time, was the Blessed 
 Virgin Mary. Before the altar in the Temple of Jeru¬ 
 salem there stands a bride of fifteen, and her betrothed 
 a man of between thirty and forty years of age. Never 
 has the world seen a bride like this. She is fairer than 
 Eve on the morning of her creation. They mutually 
 plight their troth, and Joseph and Mary of Nazareth 
 are man and wife. But there is something peculiar about 
 this marriage contract. Its bond is the perpetual virginity 
 of both parties. St. Joseph is to be a hedge set around 
 this garden of the Lord. He binds himself to secure to 
 her the vow she made before that very altar twelve years 
 since. The Carmelite, Ralphael Maria, says of these two 
 holy souls, that “ their love for one another was the 
 Holy Spirit Who dwelt in both their hearts.” Ye angels 
 in heaven! look down with envy upon our earth, for here 
 are souls with bodies which rival your own purity who 
 have none. 
 
 So highly does the Holy Church honor the state of mar¬ 
 riage that she has exalted it into a sacrament; but there are 
 some things of which our Lord has said, " Whosoever will 
 receive it let him receive it.” This unearthly life is one of 
 these. It has since been copied in the Catholic Church, but 
 never, to my knowledge, outside of it. So lived Henry the 
 
St. Joseph, Model of Fidelity 
 
 7 
 
 Second, Emperor of Germany, with Cunigunda his wife. 
 St. Gregory of Tours tells us of a nobleman of Auvergne, 
 in France, and his wife, who embraced this mortifica¬ 
 tion in their zeal for perfection, and whose tombs came 
 miraculously together, though their bodies were buried 
 apart. That dying life of theirs, it would seem, had 
 anticipated and compensated for the separation of the 
 grave. Of them may be said what Holy Scripture says 
 of Saul and Jonathan: “ They zvere lovely and comely in 
 their life, in death they were not divided.” In the most 
 perfect form of this exalted state of marriage did St. 
 Joseph live with the Blessed Virgin Mary. Oh, what 
 honor this marriage of St. Joseph’s confers upon him! 
 
 You know it is a law both of reason and of society, 
 that there shall be a certain equality in the condition of 
 betrothed persons. What would you think, for instance, 
 of the proposed marriage of a highly intellectual and 
 literary man, with a girl who could neither read nor 
 write? She might be a most excellent girl and the pride 
 of her circle of acquaintance, but you could not help ex¬ 
 claiming, “ how very unsuitable!” Or again, how ill- 
 assorted would be a marriage between a lady of great 
 refinement, and a man of rough, coarse manners! In 
 the sight of God, no doubt, he might be her superior, for 
 God looks not upon the exterior; but what sympathy 
 could they hope to find in each other? 
 
 Now in point of worldly station and parentage, St. 
 Joseph is Mary’s equal; but in grace she excels the An¬ 
 gels. What, then, must have been his graces who was 
 chosen as the spouse of her whom God chose for His 
 Mother! Again, Our Lady gave to St. Joseph not her 
 hand alone, but her heart too. As a proof of this, see 
 her accompany him to Bethlehem when there was no 
 
8 St. Joseph, Model of Fidelity 
 
 obligation on her part, but when it seemed most im¬ 
 prudent that she should leave her home at all. She 
 seems not to have been able to bear his absence from her. 
 We know, too, how gratitude excites one to love. What 
 fervor and vigor, then, must have been added to Mary’s 
 devotion for her husband, by the remembrance of those 
 protecting years from their marriage until St. Joseph’s 
 death! She loves to call him husband in public. “ Thy 
 father and I said she to our Lord in the presence of the 
 Doctors in the Temple, " have sought Thee sorrowing 
 Did he love her? Why, I suppose that every word and 
 every motion of that Child of Grace sent a thrill of de¬ 
 light to that pure heart of his. Yet there was one whom 
 St. Joseph loved even more than her. He loved God 
 above all things. Here is an occasion on which he 
 showed this. It is evident that Mary is about to become 
 a mother. He remembers the marriage vow. He recalls 
 her conduct since then. Her love of retirement, her 
 modest demeanor, her care as to her associates, her pro¬ 
 priety of speech; how can he reconcile such a fact with 
 all these ? But a fact it is, however inexplicable: what 
 then shall he do? Must he go a broken-hearted exile 
 from a home the ornament of which has ever been the 
 beauty of holiness: a home, the dwelling-place of perpetual 
 peace? Can he stay, and, by his silence, countenance 
 under his own roof at least the appearance of evil? Oh 
 the anguish of a struggle such as this! But he must 
 choose, and the choice lies between God and Mary. He 
 falters no longer, and it is given to God. He is prepar¬ 
 ing to bid farewell to his wife and home, when an Angel 
 reveals to him the mystery of the Incarnation. 
 
 “ Heroic virtue and sublime philosophy,” exclaims St. 
 Chrysostom, “superior to all passion and jealousy!” 
 
St. Joseph , Model of Fidelity 9 
 
 Here is an act of heroic sanctity that will compare 
 favorably with that of the great St. Michael. Lucifer, by 
 his magnificence, had fascinated tens of thousands from 
 among the nine choirs of Angels to revolt against God; 
 when St. Michael stood up and shouted, “ Quis ut Deusf ” 
 “Who is like God?” For this, he merited to lead the 
 hosts of Heaven which drove Satan from Paradise; 
 and to become the Standard Bearer of the Cross before 
 our Lord, when He shall appear in the clouds for the 
 Last Judgment. 
 
 St. Joseph was the wise and faithful steward of an¬ 
 other still more precious treasure. The care of the in¬ 
 fancy, childhood, youth, and the larger portion of the 
 manhood of the “ Only-begotten of the Father,” was en¬ 
 trusted to him. Without any claim to paternity, the 
 Eternal Father gave him a parent’s love. The life of the 
 Infant Redeemer was sought for even in infancy, and 
 what shall secure that life except the solicitude of a 
 father’s protecting care? Again, Jesus and His Blessed 
 Mother must buffet with the rough world, and under the 
 most trying circumstances preserve an immaculate course 
 of action; and yet their path is one of obedience, and 
 they are to follow the guidance of a man. Who then 
 is that wise and faithful steward who will invariably give 
 faultless direction? What a responsibility was this, and 
 what must have been the estimation which St. Joseph 
 merited in the eyes of God, to be put in such a place of 
 trust? 
 
 Furthermore, consider how exalted the privilege of 
 that familiar intercourse which he had with our Lord! 
 St. Simeon was ready to die with joy after once holding 
 in his arms “ the Lord’s Christ, for Whose sake his life 
 had been prolonged these many years. But St. Joseph’s 
 
10 St. Joseph, Model of Fidelity 
 
 arms were the carriage in which He rode over the desert 
 to and from the land of Egypt. They were the cradle 
 of his infancy and youth. The Centurion felt himself 
 unworthy of the honor that Jesus Christ should even 
 once come under his roof on a mission of charity. But 
 St. Joseph’s cottage roof was His shelter for those mys¬ 
 terious eighteen years of which Holy Scripture tells us 
 nothing but that our Lord was then subject to St. Jo¬ 
 seph ; " subditus illis.” 
 
 Our Lord tells us that one standard of final reward 
 shall be the care that we have taken of Him in the per¬ 
 sons of the faithful. " Come ye blessed of My Father,” 
 He will say, "for I was hungry and ye gave Me to eat, 
 I ivas thirsty and ye gave Me to drink, naked and ye 
 clothed Me, sick and in prison and ye visited Me; for 
 inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these My 
 brethren, ye have done it unto Me.” But what shall be 
 his reward whose every thought and effort was to provide 
 for the very person of Immanuel, and His Immaculate 
 Mother! Oh! to live any longer such a life of devotion 
 would have been too much honor; too much joy! Poor 
 human nature would need the grace of the Beatific Vi¬ 
 sion to hold it up. The people of the village, as they 
 pass, hear no more in that home of industry the sound 
 of his hammer and saw. St. Joseph lies on his rude 
 bed in one of the three small rooms of that lowly cot¬ 
 tage. His hand is clasped in Mary’s, his eye is set full 
 on the beautiful face of Jesus, he hears from the lips of 
 that Companion of his toil: “ Well done good and faithful 
 servant, go in peace,” and St. Joseph’s probation is over. 
 Here we have the answer to the question: " Who (thinkest 
 thou) is that wise and faithful steward whom the Lord 
 hath set over His household? ” 
 
St. Joseph, Model of Fidelity II 
 
 It is St. Joseph. He stands before us the model of 
 the faithful steward. “ Behold a faithful and wise 
 servant, whom his Lord hath made ruler over his house¬ 
 hold,” says the Church of him in the office of his feast. 
 She lovingly dwells upon the wondrous quality of fidelity 
 in this “ man beloved of God and men, wlios& memorial 
 is blessed. He sanctified him in his faithfulness and 
 meekness and chose him out of all men,” and applies to 
 him the words of Proverbs : “ A faithf ul man shall abound 
 with blessings, and he that guardeth his Master shall be 
 honored.” How beautiful, therefore, must be the virtue of 
 fidelity, yet like many other precious things, how rare it 
 is! There are points to be admired about almost every 
 person, but how seldom is fidelity, that unswerving, per¬ 
 severing, conscientious course of action, one of them! 
 Like some richly enamelled porcelain vase which has a 
 blemish, and will not bear being filled with water, so a 
 beautiful character has oftentimes this weak spot where 
 it gives way under any unusual pressure. What a mis¬ 
 fortune this is! St. Joseph was no martyr in spilling his 
 blood for the faith, but he exercised a martyr’s fidelity 
 to the convictions of his conscience and the purity of his 
 faith. To find God and to be one with God, a solitary 
 life in the desert was not necessary to St. Joseph. He 
 was in the world, and found God where he was. He 
 sanctified his work by carrying God with him into the 
 workshop. St. Joseph found the means of perfection in 
 the world, and consecrated it to God by making its cares 
 and duties subservient to divine purposes. St. Joseph’s 
 home was his cloister, and in the bosom of his family 
 he practised the sublimest virtues. While occupied with 
 the common, daily duties of life, his mind was fixed on 
 the contemplation of divine truths, thus breathing into all 
 
St. Joseph, Model of Fidelity 
 
 ¥ «¥ 
 
 T2 
 
 his actions a heavenly influence. He attained in society 
 and in human relationships a degree of perfection not 
 surpassed, if equaled, by the martyr’s death, the contem¬ 
 plative of the solitude, the cloistered monk, or the mis- 
 sonary h-ero. 
 
 Our age is not an age of martyrdom, nor an age of her¬ 
 mits, nor a monastic age. Although it has its martyrs, 
 its recluses, and its monastic communities, these are not, 
 and are not likely to be, its prevailing types of Christian 
 perfection. Our age lives in its busy marts, in counting- 
 rooms, in workshops, in homes, and in the varied rela¬ 
 tions that form human society, and it is in these that 
 sanctity is to be introduced. St. Joseph stands forth as 
 an excellent and unsurpassed model of this type of per¬ 
 fection. 
 
 In setting up St. Joseph before us, as the model of the 
 virtue of fidelity, Holy Church wishes to encourage us to 
 imitate him. She points to his exalted virtues which 
 were built up in the very walks of life in which God has 
 placed us. Fidelity to grace in our state of life is that 
 high-road to perfection along which we all may walk. 
 Let fidelity take root in your households. Be faithful, 
 husbands, to your wives. Wives be faithful to your hus¬ 
 bands. This will bring peace and harmony to your 
 homes. Be faithful, fathers and mothers. Ah, God 
 has comrnitted a great trust to your care, in those boys 
 and girls of yours. Be faithful, brothers, sisters and chil¬ 
 dren. Home is the very nursery of virtue. Mechanics, 
 be faithful at your trades. Domestic and laborers, be 
 faithful in your work. Professional men, be faithful in 
 yottr practice. You will find St. Joseph’s footprints all 
 aloilg these paths. Follow him up from this time forth. 
 ' Put 'yourselves under his patronage. Be devout to him, 
 
St. Joseph, Model of Fidelity 13 
 
 for we naturally, and therefore easily, imitate those whom 
 we love. Let us ask him to get us courage to be faith¬ 
 ful to grace under every variety of circumstance; that 
 on reaching our journey’s end we may hear those con¬ 
 soling words, “ Well done, good and faithful servant, en- 
 
 ‘ .* * ' . ,4 
 
 ter thoU into the joy of thy Lord 
 
 Joy of the Saints! who didst uphold 
 
 Our life’s sure Hope, the world’s one Stay, 
 
 Joseph! as now thy praise is told, 
 
 Hearken to us in love to-day. 
 
 * 
 
 • The great Creator made it thine .. 
 
 To be the spouse of purest Maid, 
 
 And father of the Word Divine 
 In name—salvation’s work to aid. 
 
 Thou seest with joy in manger lie 
 The Saviour sung by seers of yore, 
 
 And Him, the Son of God Most High, - 
 
 In lowliness thou didst adore. 
 
 j 1 * * . , ». 
 
 The King of kings, the Lord of all, 
 
 The God whom heaven in awe attends, 
 
 Whose nod makes trembling demons fall, 
 
 To thee in meek submission bends. 
 
 To God Most High, the Three in One, 
 
 Be praise, Who gave such grace to thee, 
 
 He make us win what thou hast won, 
 
 The joys of life eternally. 
 
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