Saint Joseph In Prayer

As a good Israelite, Saint Joseph knows the marvellous promise revealed to Isaiah, the promise of a Messiah born of a Virgin. He cannot doubt Mary’s virginity and therefore understands that the promise is being fulfilled in his home. […] Joseph wanted to separate from Mary for the same reason that Peter said, ‘Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man,’ and the centurion said, ‘Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof’ (Mt 8:8). Joseph considered himself a sinner, unworthy of keeping in his house a woman whose excellence and incomparable dignity inspired in him a veneration bordering on fear […].”, Fulton Sheen, The First Love of the World.

Joseph prays to understand God’s will and falls asleep, overwhelmed, after poring over the Scriptures all night.

I imagine him meditating on the passage about the burning bush, because I associate Joseph’s fear with that of Moses in the presence of the Most High (Ex 3:1-7). His foot crushes the serpent to remind us that Joseph is the ‘terror of demons’, according to the term used in his litanies. This is perhaps also the most painful moment for him, his ‘passion’, we might say.

The lily, which he was perhaps going to offer to Mary, evokes the mystery of chastity that is at the heart of the event.

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