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Pope Francis proclaims “Year of St Joseph”
With the Apostolic Letter “Patris corde” (“With a Father’s Heart”), Pope Francis recalls the 150th anniversary of the declaration of Saint Joseph as Patron of the Universal Church. To mark the occasion, the Holy Father has proclaimed a “Year of Saint Joseph” from Dec 8, 2020, to Dec 8, 2021.
Pope Francis describes Saint Joseph as a beloved father, a tender & loving father, an obedient father, an accepting father; a father who is creatively courageous, a working father, a father in the shadows.
The Holy Father wrote Patris corde against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, which, he says, has helped us see more clearly the importance of “ordinary” people who, though far from the limelight, exercise patience & offer hope every day. In this, they resemble Saint Joseph, “the man who goes unnoticed, a daily, discreet & hidden presence,” who nonetheless played “an incomparable role in the history of salvation.”
A beloved, tender, obedient father Saint Joseph, in fact, “concretely expressed his fatherhood” by making an offering of himself in love “a love placed at the service of the Messiah who was growing to maturity in his home,” writes Pope Francis, quoting his predecessor St Paul VI.
& because of his role at “the crossroads between the Old & New Testament,” St Joseph “has always been venerated as a father by the Christian people”. In him, “Jesus saw the tender love of God,” the one that helps us accept our weakness, because “it is through” & despite “our fears, our frailties, & our weakness” that most divine designs are realized. “Only tender love will save us from the snares of the accuser,” emphasizes the Pontiff, & it is by encountering God’s mercy especially in the Sacrament of Reconciliation that we “experience His truth & tenderness,” – because “we know that God’s truth does not condemn us, but instead welcomes, embraces, sustains & forgives us”.
Joseph is also a father in obedience to God: with his ‘fiat’ he protects Mary & Jesus & teaches his Son to “do the will of the Father.” Called by God to serve the mission of Jesus, he “cooperated… in the great mystery of Redemption,” as St John Paul II said, “& is truly a minister of salvation”.
At the same time, Joseph is “an accepting Father,” because he “accepted Mary unconditionally” an important gesture even today, says Pope Francis, “in our world where psychological, verbal & physical violence towards women is so evident.” But the Bridegroom of Mary is also the one who, trusting in the Lord, accepts in his life even the events that he does not understand, “setting aside his own ideas” & reconciling himself with his own history.
Joseph’s spiritual path “is not one that explains, but accepts” which does not mean that he is “resigned.” Instead, he is “courageously & firmly proactive,” because with “Holy Spirit’s gift of fortitude,” & full of hope, he is able “to accept life as it is, with all its contradictions, frustrations & disappointments.” In practice, through St. Joseph, it is as if God were to repeat to us: “Do not be afraid!” because “faith gives meaning to every event, however happy or sad,” & makes us aware that “God can make flowers spring up from stony ground.” Joseph “did not look for shortcuts but confronted reality with open eyes & accepted personal responsibility for it.” For this reason, “he encourages us to accept & welcome others as they are, without exception, & to show special concern for the weak”.
Patris corde highlights “the creative courage” of St. Joseph, which “emerges especially in the way we deal with difficulties.” “The carpenter of Nazareth,” explains the Pope, was able to turn a problem into a possibility by trusting in divine providence.” He had to deal with “the concrete problems” his Family faced, problems faced by other families in the world, & especially those of migrants.
In this sense, St. Joseph is “the special patron of all those forced to leave their native lands because of war, hatred, persecution & poverty.” As the guardian of Jesus & Mary, Joseph cannot “be other than the guardian of the Church,” of her motherhood, & of the Body of Christ. “Consequently, every poor, needy, suffering or dying person, every stranger, every prisoner, every infirm person is ‘the child’ whom Joseph continues to protect.” From St Joseph, writes Pope Francis, “we must learn… to love the Church & the poor” (5).
A father who teaches the value, dignity & joy of work
“A carpenter who earned an honest living to provide for his family,” St Joseph also teaches us “the value, the dignity & the joy of what it means to eat bread that is the fruit of one’s own labor.” This aspect of Joseph’s character provides Pope Francis the opportunity to launch an appeal in favor of work, which has become “a burning social issue” even in countries with a certain level of well-being. “there is a renewed need to appreciate the importance of dignified work, of which Saint Joseph is an exemplary patron,” the Pope writes.
Work, he says, “is a means of participating in the work of salvation, an opportunity to hasten the coming of the Kingdom, to develop our talents & abilities, & to put them at the service of society & fraternal communion.” Those who work, he explains, “are cooperating with God himself, & in some way become creators of the world around us.” Pope Francis encourages everyone “to rediscover the value, the importance & the necessity of work for bringing about a new ‘normal’ from which no one is excluded.” Especially in light of rising unemployment due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Pope calls everyone to “review our priorities” & to express our firm conviction that no young person, no person at all, no family should be without work!”.
St Joseph was a father “in the shadows,” centered on Mary & Jesus. Pope Francis describes Joseph’s fatherhood of Jesus as “the earthly shadow of the heavenly Father.”
“Fathers are not born, but made,” says Pope Francis. “A man does not become a father simply by bringing a child into the world, but by taking up the responsibility to care for that child.” Unfortunately, in today’s society, children “often seem orphans, lacking fathers” who are able to introduce them “to life & reality.” Children need fathers who will not try to dominate them, but instead raise them to be “capable of deciding for themselves, enjoying freedom & exploring new possibilities.”
This is the sense in which St Joseph is described as a “most chaste” father, which is the opposite of domineering possessiveness. Joseph, says Pope Francis, “knew how to love with extraordinary freedom.  He never made himself the center of things.  He did not think of himself, but focused instead on the lives of Mary & Jesus.”
Happiness for Joseph involved a true gift of self: “In him, we never see frustration, but only trust,” writes Pope Francis. “His patient silence was the prelude to concrete expressions of trust.” Joseph stands out, therefore, as an exemplary figure for our time, in a world that “needs fathers,” & not “tyrants”; a society that “rejects those who confuse authority with authoritarianism, service with servility, discussion with oppression, charity with a welfare mentality, power with destruction.”
True fathers, instead, “refuse to live the lives of their children for them,” & instead respect their freedom. In this sense, says Pope Francis, a father realizes that “he is most a father & an educator at the point when he becomes ‘useless,’ when he sees that his child has become independent & can walk the paths of life unaccompanied.” Being a father, the Pope emphasizes, “has nothing to do with possession, but is rather a ‘sign’ pointing to a greater fatherhood”: that of the “heavenly Father”.
A daily prayer to St Joseph… & a challenge
In his letter, Pope Francis notes how, “Every day, for over forty years, following Lauds [Morning Prayer]” he has “recited a prayer to Saint Joseph taken from a nineteenth-century French prayer book of the Congregation of the Sisters of Jesus & Mary.” This prayer, he says, expresses devotion & trust, & even poses a certain challenge to St Joseph,” on account of its closing words: “My beloved father, all my trust is in you.  Let it not be said that I invoked you in vain, & since you can do everything with Jesus & Mary, show me that your goodness is as great as your power.”
At the conclusion of his Letter, he adds another prayer to St Joseph, which he encourages all of us to pray together:

Hail, Guardian of the Redeemer, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
To you God entrusted his only Son; in you Mary placed her trust;
with you Christ became man.
Blessed Joseph, to us too, show yourself a father
& guide us in the path of life.
Obtain for us grace, mercy, & courage, & defend us from every evil.  Amen.

We pray our Novena to St. Roch, and one line in the closing prayer comes in loud and clear;
“For it is in being uncertain & not in control that we find true faith.” Scripture defines faith; “Confidence concerning what we hope for, conviction about what we do not yet see.”

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