Video: Bishop Ruggieri's Homily on Solemnity of St. Joseph

Transcript:

This beautiful solemnity of Saint Joseph, the protector of the universal church, guardian of the redeemer, we obviously look to him and we celebrate his virtue. Now it's really amazing to think that he is so revered, so loved, so important in God's plan of salvation and he says nothing in scripture. There's no verse attributed to an original speech or something that he may have said. Simply his presence, his example, and his virtue really speak for themselves and have echoed down through the generations to us today.

Just would like to say a couple of quick words about him. We often call Mary the first disciple, but then that makes Joseph the second disciple because he had the courage to say yes to this invitation of God to become the earthly father of Jesus.

Now we hear the Gospel today from St. Matthew about the birth of Jesus, and I think one of the things that just comes to mind when we hear about Joseph's sort of reluctance to continue in this relationship, we think that it is possible that we think that maybe he was just so befuddled by all this news he didn't know what to do, maybe he thought Mary had been unfaithful to him, but I would propose the contrary.

I would propose that Joseph was so overwhelmed by this whole situation, by the holiness of God, the righteousness of God, the goodness of God, that he felt he was unworthy to be the earthly father of Jesus, to be the protector of the Son of God. And so he was stepping back voluntarily, not because he was angry at Mary, not because he felt she had been unfaithful to him. He knew her. They grew up in Nazareth together. He knew her virtue. He loved her, that's why he wanted to be her husband. So I don't think it was because he doubted her, I think he was just so awed by what was happening, and he just felt unworthy.

So it really points to the humility of Joseph, recognizing his smallness in sort of the greatness of God's plan, that God was beginning to execute now through the yes of the Blessed Mother.

And then just the other thing I think about, I think about Joseph is he was such an example to Jesus. We admire the human virtue of Jesus, obviously. Jesus is fully God, fully human. We admire his virtue. He is the exemplar man, exemplar. And he learned so much of that virtue by his father, earthly father, Joseph. I think that's very important. We think Jesus, and he obviously being fully God, of course, but he was fully human and his humanity needed to grow and to develop. His humanity needed good role models. And he had one of the best in Joseph, a model of masculinity, the masculine genius.

What a household that must have been, Mary, Joseph, Jesus. Joseph, every day in his earthly life, in his married life, he'd wake up and he'd see Mary, and he'd see Jesus. It was like a glimpse of heaven for his time here on earth.

So we pray to him today in a special way. We entrust the church to him. We trust our local church, the Diocese of Portland to him. And we simply ask for his prayers, his intercession, and that we, like he, may grow in virtue, may grow in faith, may grow in love, more love for Jesus and Mary.