Dear Holy Trinity Community,

March is a month of honoring St. Joseph in which the Church celebrates the Solemnity of Mass on March 19. St. Joseph was a righteous man who totally obeyed God and accepted the will of God in order to protect Mary and Jesus. Just like we ask our Blessed Virgin Mary to intercede for us all the time, we must ask St. Joseph for his intercessions as well. It seems that we don’t much see a particular role of St. Joseph, unlike that of Mary being a mother of Jesus, in the history of salvation of God pertained to our human involvement and participation; however, St. Joseph took the great role in that sense of coordinating God’s salvific plan along with Mary. We do not know about actual Jesus’ relationship with and to St. Joseph because the Bible does not say much about it. But we can presume that St. Joseph and Jesus had a close relationship as “a (foster) father and a son” because Jesus was known as a carpenter. The primary Bible verse Mark 6:3 says that Jesus was a carpenter where the people of Nazareth ask, “Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon?” Also, Matthew 13:55 refers to Jesus as “the carpenter’s son”. Due to these references of Jesus’ occupation, he must have learned a carpentry work from St. Joseph as family business, and they had a very close relationship.

In the St. John’s Seminary, my alma mater, where most of Los Angeles priests have been trained and still many L.A. seminarians are studying there, there are a few chapels: the main chapel where daily and weekly Masses are celebrated, one small chapel in the residence floor of priests who are teaching at St. John’s Seminary, and another small chapel where is the entrance of seminary main chapel’s sacristy. In the third mentioned chapel, there is one particular mural on the wall, that is a painting of St. Joseph’s death. On his death bed, there are Jesus standing at his side along with Mary kneeling. This simple but beautiful image of St. Joseph’s final time with Jesus and Mary captivated my devotion to St. Joseph.

Durning the life of our late Holy Father Pope Francis, he wrote difficult problems or prayer intentions on small notes and placed them underneath of the statute of a sleeping St. Joseph, that he brought from Argentina to the Vatican, on his desk. Holy Father revealed and noted that he had asked St. Joseph to dream about them and take care of them. Referring St. Joseph received God’s messages in his dream and Holy Father said that St. Joseph even when he is asleep, he looks after the Church, and he continues to protect the Church while sleeping as he was protecting Jeus and Mary.

During the month of March, especially as we take our Lenten journey with the Suffering Christ, let us sincerely ask St. Joseph to intercede for all of us so that our journey may be fruitful and all our difficulties be addressed with proper solutions. May God bless you all!

Blessings,

Fr. Brian