The Church applies these Gospel words to St. Joseph. Therefore, it is fitting that I meditate on the life of St. Joseph to try to discover more about who he is, so I can better understand who I should be. To this end, I will go back to that Old Testament type of St. Joseph—the ‘other Joseph,’ Joseph of Egypt—to glean from his story insight into St. Joseph. I will take as a directive for me the words of pharaoh of Egypt, “Go to Joseph; what he says to you, do.” (Genesis 41:55)
S TEP P IN G U P TO T H E VOC ATI O N OF A MAN “[A]nd he made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had.” (Genesis 39:4) Pharaoh’s steward Potiphar put Joseph over his house. Later, the pharaoh himself would do the same. “[Y]ou shall be over my house, and all my people shall order themselves as you command.” (Genesis 41:40) There is something quite dramatic here. A man who has no special claim to it is given a great charge. He is put over a household, and then a nation, that is not really his—at least not as his own possession. Yet it becomes his, as a place that he serves, by the order of someone higher—someone who has an even deeper interest in the good of those people. To be a man is to be a crafter of the good life, in oneself and others. A man wants to make something. Just what is the primary object of his making, of his crafting? For a husband and father, it is the real flourishing of his household—i.e., the persons in the community under his special care. The household is the real home of masculinity. Anything a man does in business or sports, for instance, is but a shadow of what he does here. The household is the most natural context where manhood is developed and honed precisely in and through a man’s discovering and exercising his place there. And what is he to do there? “You shall be over my house.” (Genesis 41:39) So says Pharaoh to Joseph, and so said God to St. Joseph. And amazingly, He says this to me. This is my calling, regardless of how strange it sounds, or how unprepared I find myself. Now is the time for me to step up. I am not “discreet and wise” (Ibid.) as were the two Josephs, but I must do my best.
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Instaurare
Joseph and Jesus in the workshop. St Martin’s Church, Kortrijk, Belgium.
THE G I FT O F AUTHO RI TY “Lo, having me, my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my hand.” (Genesis 39:8, Joseph to Potiphar’s wife) “And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them.” (Luke 2:51) True authority is in God. That He deigns to exercise authority over His creatures is one of the most profound expressions of His love for us. That He deigns to share authority with His creatures—inviting them in various ways to have and also be
