St. Joseph, a Just man

August 15, 2021 • 2 min

From St. Joseph’s Life, Virtues, Privileges, Power, page 319
By Very Rev. Archdeacon Kinane, P.P.

“Whereupon Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing publicly to expose her, was minded to put her away privately” (Matt. i. 19).

Meditate on the sublime virtues of St. Joseph. The Holy Ghost Himself canonised St. Joseph, and described all his virtues by one word, “just.”

“Here,” says St. John Chrysostom, “‘just’ means perfect in every virtue.”

A celebrated Jesuit Father writes: “In one word, the Holy Ghost gives us the noblest description of the prodigious virtues of the most worthy spouse of the Mother of God. … No description can be more honourable, no eulogy more comprehensive, because this word ‘just’ in the Gospel, according to commentators on Holy Writ, means that St. Joseph possessed all virtues in their highest perfection. By this word ‘just’ are signified those flames of love which consumed the soul of St. Joseph from the moment of the Incarnation to his dying hour in the arms of Jesus and Mary” (Vallejo. Life, p. 276).

The word “just” not only comprehended St. Joseph’s love for God, but his charity to Mary as his neighbour. “Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing publicly to expose her, was minded to put her away privately.”

“Just” comprehended his prompt and blind obedience to God’s commands, when, at the bidding of an Angel, he fled into Egypt, and again returned to his native country.

An eloquent writer says:—“For my part I reverence the virtues of St. Joseph, and leave to other pens to give them all the light and splendour which their brilliancy deserves, not with ink, but with the rays of the sun. Nor should anyone wonder at my saying that these virtues should be described with rays of light, when the eloquence of a Nazianzen, overwhelmed by the glory of the prerogatives and virtues of the reputed father of Jesus, exclaims: ‘In Joseph, as a sun, are gathered all the lights of the Saints.’”