While flipping through a missalette one Sunday morning during the homily, my sister stopped short when her eyes landed on what she thought to be a very disparaging song title: “St. Joseph Was Just a Man.” She stared at it a moment longer, really in a bit of disbelief that someone would write a song like this, and then it hit her. Her eyes hadn’t quite relayed the correct information to her brain. The title of the song was, in fact, “St. Joseph Was a Just Man.” Big difference. Huge in fact. She told us, we all had a good laugh, and have kept it alive as a little family joke ever since. Whenever someone makes a comment about a saint being just another so-and-so, someone will invariably respond with, “And St. Joseph was just a man.” It’s funny, because it’s true. Saint Joseph was just a man, and yet God used him as His personal stand-in with His own Son.
Whenever I think about St. Joseph, I try to remember this. Whereas Mary was conceived sinless and remained so her entire life, St. Joseph was just a man. While she had the grace of remaining sinless her entire life, he had original sin and presumably all of the consequences of it. He probably had actual sins of his own, as we all have, and yet he was chosen by God to be the foster father of Jesus. We know next to nothing about him, but we are told in the Gospels is that he was just, righteous, and considerate of the Blessed Mother, even in a situation when many other men would have taken full advantage of the law. And yet, he was just a man, who chose instead to divorce her quietly, and then instead, to take her as his wife on the say so of an angel. He was just a man who showed tremendous faith in difficult times, who wanted to do God’s will, even if it didn’t make sense according to the world.
In choosing parents for His Son, a mother, and a foster father, God gave us two amazing examples of humanity: perfect and imperfect. In Mary we have what we all could have been, and a perfect mother who we can go to for every thing we need. But the example we have in St. Joseph is one that is perhaps easier to relate to on a human level. Mary is the perfect mother, but Joseph, who wasn’t perfect at all, is like the rest of us. He is just as fallen as we all are, and yet, he is an instrument of God’s love, just as we are called to be.
As a parent, I am even more in awe of St. Joseph. When I feel useless after bad day of raising my children, I think of St. Joseph. How many days must he have had where he felt useless (but for obviously different reasons)? How many times did he make mistakes, the man chosen by God to raise His son? His life puts my own into sharp perspective. God chose me to raise my children. So no matter how bad I think I’m doing some days, God sees something of value in me and my imperfections. What is the saying? God doesn’t call the qualified; He qualifies the called? I don’t think there is a better example of the truth of that statement than St. Joseph.