St. Joseph: Father by Proxy or Praxis?
AM: Psalm 132 • Isaiah 63:7-16 • Matt. 1:18-25
PM: Psalm 34 • 2 Chron. 6:12-17 • Eph. 3:14-21
A 15th-century icon of the Holy Family depicts Mary sitting up in bed, studying Scripture, while Joseph sits on the floor at the foot of the bed, holding the infant Christ. They are in the stable of Jesus’ birth; one of the cattle nibbles at Joseph’s halo. From the moment I saw this image it redefined my conception of St. Joseph.
"Catholics have to decide,” Dr. Anthony Oliveira tweeted in a thread on historical understandings of St. Joseph, “is Joseph a Matthew Cuthbert [1] figure—an old man whose autumn years suddenly have a precocious kid thrust in them, or a young man negotiating a kind of masculinity and family he didn’t expect—a family that looks traditional, but absolutely isn’t? (Protestants, as usual, bunt, because that's what Protestants do.)” Since I am from the evangelical sect of the bunting Protestants, I only learned the former conception of Joseph as an adult. (As far I’m concerned, “old Joseph” exists to reify the idea of Mary’s perpetual virginity, and therefore that women’s purity is inextricably linked to their sexuality, but that’s a topic for another reflection.)
Although in the icon I described Joseph is depicted as a balding, older man, I am drawn to the image for what Dr. Oliveira posits as the predicament of a young Joseph: the emasculating circumstances of not being the biological father of his wife's child. Joseph, with angelic coaxing, chose to enter this fraught territory. In various other depictions Joseph cradles and bathes the infant Jesus, prepares baby food, and warms swaddling bands. He may not be Jesus’ father by birth, but by choice and by the practice of fatherhood. Jesus laid aside his divinity to become man, but Joseph laid aside his culture’s construct of masculinity in order to become Jesus’ father.
[1] This is an Anne of Green Gablesreference, just in case you, like me, read those books too many years ago to remember.
Written by Kathryn Haydon
Kathryn studies rice quality and disease as a PhD candidate in Plant Science at the University of Arkansas and sings in the St. Paul's choir. You can view the Nativity icon from the Besancon Book of Hours here.