Grace

“Of the kindness of the Lord the earth is full” (Ps 33:5). According to Wikipedia, grace is the benevolence shown by God toward humankind in the form of an undeserved benefit or assistance.

God endows His faithful with innumerable graces. After the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph obtained the most graces. One of the greatest graces he received was the fact that he was chosen by God to be the husband of the Blessed Virgin. As a husband to the Virgin, he became a companion in her life, a witness of her virginity, and the guardian of her honor (cf. FILAS, F.L.: St. Joseph After Vatican II, p. 27).

Since this union was a genuine marriage, Joseph possessed all the rights and obligations of a husband, and moreover, the title of “father of Jesus”. This title was applied to him not only by those who were ignorant of Christ’s origin, “When Jesus began his ministry he was about thirty years of age. He was the son, as was thought, of Joseph” (Lk 3:23), and “Is he not the carpenter’s son?” (Mt 13:55), but also by His first disciples, “We have found the one about whom Moses wrote in the law, and also the prophets, Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth” (Jn 1:45), and by his wife, the Blessed Virgin, “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I …” (Lk 2:48). Joseph’s greatest honor as “father of Jesus” arose from the condescension of the Eternal Father in heaven, who bestowed the title on him. The Eternal Father manifested His love for St. Joseph by entrusting him with the double office of husband of Mary and legal father of Jesus. St. Bernard writes that Joseph was the father of the family whom the Eternal Father gave as a spouse to the Mother of God and as a father to His Son. Joseph accepted this grace and developed it by silently and faithfully carrying out God’s plan on earth. Therefore, God “made him lord of his house and ruler of all his possessions” (Ps 105:21). In God’s house, where God’s family, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, lived were gathered the whole court of heaven and earth with the innumerable angels and people that God has created. The head of the family was Joseph, who sustained it with bread by the sweat of his brow (cf. CHORPENNING, J.F.: Just Man, Husband of Mary, Guardian of Christ, p. 131).

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