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How Old Was Saint Joseph? Part II

Now that we’ve looked briefly at the case for Saint Joseph as an older man in our last post, how about the other side of the argument? Is it possible that Saint Joseph was a younger man when he became the adoptive father of Jesus? Under this view, it would still be possible to hold the opinion that Joseph knew about Mary’s prior commitment to consecrated virginity, or (far more unlikely) that they were planning a “normal” marriage prior to Mary’s discovery of her unique vocation to be the Mother of the Messiah?

Here’s what St. Josemaria Escriva, who had a tremendous devotion to St. Joseph, said about the matter in a homily about St. Joseph in 1963:

“I don’t agree with the traditional picture of St Joseph as an old man, even though it may have been prompted by a desire to emphasise the perpetual virginity of Mary. I see him as a strong young man, perhaps a few years older than our Lady, but in the prime of his life and work…You don’t have to wait to be old or lifeless to practice the virtue of chastity. Purity comes from love; and the strength and gaiety of youth are no obstacle for noble love. Joseph had a young heart and a young body when he married Mary, when he learned of the mystery of her divine motherhood, when he lived in her company, respecting the integrity God wished to give the world as one more sign that he had come to share the life of his creatures. Anyone who cannot understand a love like that knows very little of true love and is a complete stranger to the christian meaning of chastity.”

I suppose an important question in this debate is this: How old is old? perhaps a type of “hybrid” view makes the best sense. For example, Joseph could have married Mary when he was about 25-30 years old (with Mary being, in all likelihood, no more than 16, according to the majority of New Testament scholars). Joseph would have still possessed a relatively “young body”, as St. Josemaria put it, able to withstand the rigors of the flight into Egypt and the journey back to Nazareth some time later. He would have been capable of working hard for many years and protecting Jesus and Mary, as well as providing for their necessities.

The average life span of men in the first century in the Roman Empire was considerably less, however, than what we enjoy today. Thirty years later, when Jesus began his ministry, it is more than concievable that Joseph, approaching sixty, may have already passed away.

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On Candlemas

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Today the Church celebrates Candlemas, otherwise known as the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, the Light of the World (Luke 2:22-40). It was in Gaul (modern-day France) that processions with candles began to mark this event, the official end of the celebration of the Nativity.

Jesus, like all Jewish firstborn sons, was consecrated to the Lord. Mary and Joseph took the child to the temple in Jerusalem at the time he was to be circumcised and offered the sacrifice of two pigeons, the offering of a poor couple who could not afford a more expensive animal sacrifice. Only Mary and Joseph, and possibly Simeon and Anna would have known that the ultimate and final sacrifice, the true Lamb of God, was being presented in the temple. And only they would have known that here was the true temple – the Body of Christ (cf. John 2:19-22 ).

The Ark of the Covenant, which used to be housed in the Jerusalem Temple, had been missing since Jeremiah hid it from invading marauders in 586 BC. Yet, the true Ark, the Ark of the New Covenant, Mary, was now entering the temple with her divine Son. She brought the Light of the World into the world. Saint Alphonsus of Liguori, in The Glories of Mary, says, “Saint Simeon received a promise from God that he should not die until he had seen the Messiah born…but he did not receive this grace except by means of Mary, for he did not see the Savior until he saw him in the arms of Mary. Hence, whoever wishes to find Jesus, will not find him except through Mary.”

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Mary of the Annunciation

Today’s Gospel is the famous account of the Annunciation from Luke 1:26-38. It includes some indirect proof for two major Marian dogmas of the Church – the Immaculate Conception (which was recently celebrated on Dec. 8), and the perpetual virginity of Our Lady. It also gives us part of the biblical roots of the “Hail Mary”.

When the archangel Gabriel greets Mary, it marks the only recorded incident in scripture that an angel greets someone by their title, not their name. “Hail, Full of Grace, the Lord is with you” (Lk 1:28). This, of course, is the first line of the “Hail Mary”, with the second line, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb”, from Luke 1:42. So much for the ridiculous argument that the prayer is “unbiblical”.

But what of those dogmas? Speaking of the phrase, “Full of Grace”, in the original Greek of Luke’s Gospel, it is an interesting term: “kecharitomene”. It means, literally, “one who has been made full of God’s grace” (biblical translations that render this term “highly favored one”, or something to that effect, don’t cut it) . It’s a past perfect, meaning that, at some point in the past, Mary was made perfectly full of God’s grace. This condition extends out into the future, into eternity. This is exactly what the Immaculate Conception is all about  – that, from the first moment of her existence, Mary was preserved free from all stain of original sin. If one is perfectly full of the grace of God, there is no room for sin.

With respect to the perpetual virginity, Gabriel explains to Mary that she will bear the Messiah, and at this point he has said nothing about Jesus being conceived by the Holy Spirit. Yet, Mary says, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” (Lk 1:34). A very strange question for a young woman to ask, who, as we have already been told, was engaged to be married. Unless, that is, she had already intended to remain a virgin, consecrating herself wholly to God.

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Queen Mother

“And a great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Revelation 12:1).

Today’s feast of the Queenship of Mary celebrates the coronation of Mary as Queen of the universe. This is another Marian teaching of the Church that non-Catholics have trouble with, because it’s scriptural roots aren’t as obvious as they often are for other doctrines. A proper understanding of typology, however, makes the Queenship of Mary stand out in sharp relief as one reads the sacred page.

What is typology? As one writer put it, “God writes the world the way humans write with words.” Human writers can use literary devices like foreshadowing to tip the reader off to what’s coming in the future. When God acts in the history of salvation, he works in a similar fashion. He uses not words, but events, places, and people during Old Covenant times to foreshadow even greater realities – events, places, and people – of the New Covenant.

One of those realities is the position of Queen. In the Old Covenant Kingdom of David, the Queen was not the wife of the King, but his mother – the Queen Mother. This position began under King Solomon, the son of David. Solomon had, of course, many wives, so rather than have them slug it out in some sort of mud wrestling match for the title, the crown went to Bathsheba, the king’s mother, who sat at his right hand.

In a similar way, the one the New Testament hails as “the Son of David” rules a Kingdom. Jesus calls it “the Kingdom of God – exactly what David’s kingdom was called in the OT. That kingdom has a Prime Minister, which we saw in this past Sunday’s readings is Peter, who holds the “keys of the kingdom”, like Eliakim did in Isaiah 22.

This Kingdom also has a Queen – a Queen Mother, Mary. This is why foreign dignitaries pay homage to Jesus as to a king, alongside his mother after his birth (Matthew 2:11), just as other rulers would have done in earlier times for Solomon in the presence of his mother.

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