Pope Francis has declared the year 2021 as the year dedicated to the figure of Saint Joseph on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of his proclamation as patron of the Universal Church
Leonardo Boff, who considers him the father of the domestic Church, contributed with his book Saint Joseph, father of Jesus in a society without a father to better know his figure
“The book is a small treatise on Josephology, covering the biblical aspects of tradition, late and modern reflection on it and trying to renew the understanding of Saint Joseph”
“If God is essentially a trinity of divine Persons, all of them, always acting together, each one in its singularity, then they have communicated themselves in the history of salvation”
“Because of his dreams that, according to the psychoanalytic tradition, represent the deepest part of the human being, the collective unconscious and because he is a worker, Saint Joseph has all the characteristics of the Father”
“The silence of Saint Joseph has a spiritual and existential meaning. In the official Church it is the popes, bishops and priests who speak. The people of God live, generally a profound silence”
“The book is a small treatise on Josephology, covering the biblical aspects of tradition, late and modern reflection on it and trying to renew the understanding of Saint Joseph”
“If God is essentially a trinity of divine Persons, all of them, always acting together, each one in its singularity, then they have communicated themselves in the history of salvation”
“Because of his dreams that, according to the psychoanalytic tradition, represent the deepest part of the human being, the collective unconscious and because he is a worker, Saint Joseph has all the characteristics of the Father”
“The silence of Saint Joseph has a spiritual and existential meaning. In the official Church it is the popes, bishops and priests who speak. The people of God live, generally a profound silence”
“Because of his dreams that, according to the psychoanalytic tradition, represent the deepest part of the human being, the collective unconscious and because he is a worker, Saint Joseph has all the characteristics of the Father”
“The silence of Saint Joseph has a spiritual and existential meaning. In the official Church it is the popes, bishops and priests who speak. The people of God live, generally a profound silence”
(Loyola Communication Group).- He Pope Francisco has declared the year 2021 as the year dedicated to the figure of Saint Joseph on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of his proclamation as patron of the Universal Church. With the heart of a father: this is how Joseph loved Jesus, called in the four Gospels “the son of Joseph”, he describes in his apostolic letter Patris Corde. An event celebrated by the theologian Leonardo Boff to understand that Saint Joseph is rather the patron of the domestic Church than of the Church-great institution. He himself already contributed his book ‘Saint Joseph, father of Jesus in a fatherless society’ to know your figure better. He dedicated this reflection to him in Sal Terrae, taking into account the Bible, tradition, the doctrine of the magisterium and theologians, the liturgy and popular piety.
As Pope Francis has expressed, the two evangelists who showed his figure, Mateo and Lucas, were very sparingly, “but enough to understand what kind of father he was and the mission that Providence entrusted to him.” And this book he delves into that Saint Joseph worker, husband, father and educator and exposes how he illuminates the current questions of the family and the figure of the father. In the prologue, Paulo Coelho dedicates these beautiful words: «I take pleasure in the idea that the table on which Jesus consecrated the bread and wine would have been made by Joseph, because there would have been the imprint of the hand of an anonymous carpenter who made a living with the sweat of his face and, precisely because of this, he allowed miracles to manifest.
Well, the 3rd edition of # SanJosé ????
A unique figure in the life of Jesus that we usually know very little about. And yet through Joseph we can see and understand God better.This is an essential book for this Year of Saint Joseph ????
????????– Loyola Communication Group (@LoyolaGC) December 22, 2020
– In the light of your book Saint Joseph (Sal Terrae 2011) and the words of Pope Francis in his declaration of the year 2021 Year of Saint Joseph, do you think that the figure of Saint Joseph should be revalued?
In the Church practically until the 800s, little mention was made of Saint Joseph. As he did not leave any words, he had only dreams, they did not know what to do with him. Only in 1870 was he proclaimed patron of the universal Church, not directly by Pope Pius IX, but by a decree of the Congregation of Rites. Pope John XXIII was a great devotee of the saint and entrusted him with the Second Vatican Council. He did more: he introduced “Saint Joseph, husband of Mary” into the canon of the Mass. The Apostolic Exhortation Patris Amore of Pope Francis and the proclamation of a Josephine year gave it more relevance, particularly for the seven virtues that he analyzed in a spiritual and pastoral sense. But it must be recognized that the Holy See was the last to be conquered by the devotion to Saint Joseph. The people have always had a great devotion to him, it is enough to see that the name José is given to many people, to schools, to streets, etc. In fact Saint Joseph is rather the patron of the domestic Church than of the Church-great-institution.
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– Probably, the objective of your book was to revalue the figure of Saint Joseph. What echoes have you received throughout these years from your readers and believers?
The book was very well received by the community of theologians and by the Church in general. It has been translated into several languages. For example, Cardinal Aloisio Lorscheider when reading my book received a great impact and had not realized how much could be learned from this singular saint. He personally confessed to me that the last three spiritual retreats he preached were all in the light of what I have explained in my text. What I wrote is, in truth, a small treatise on Josephology, covering the biblical aspects, of tradition, of late and modern reflection on him and trying to renew the understanding of Saint Joseph, especially, in a line pointed out by Pope John Paul II in his Apostolic Exhortation Redemptoris Custos of August 15, 1989: his assumption in the mystery of the Incarnation thus giving it a certain hypostatic dimension.
– What is the most unknown thing about the figure of Saint Joseph that you think is most necessary to highlight?
The task of theology is to discover more and more dimensions of the inexhaustible mystery of God. In the sense of the Dei Verbum of Vatican II, the revelation of God is more than revealing hidden truths, but rather means a self-communication of God himself, just as he is. If God is essentially trinidad of divine Persons, all of them, always acting together, each one in its singularity, then they have communicated themselves in the history of salvation. We know the Holy Spirit who set up his tent on Mary (Lk 1,35), the Son who also set up his tent on Jesus (Jo 1,14) and there is no reflection on the self-communication of the Father, the fundamental mystery of all divinity . What would be the most suitable human person to receive the divine person of the Father? I maintain that Saint Joseph has all the characteristics to be the personification of the Father.
First by his dreams, which, according to the psychoanalytic tradition, represents the deepest part of the human being, the collective unconscious; Furthermore, he did not say a word because it is not the Father who speaks, but the Son, the eternal Word. Finally, it is said in the Gospel of Saint John that the Father works, which is the characteristic of Saint Joseph, of being a worker. He would be, as a terrestrial father, the subject of the reception of the celestial Father’s self-communication. Thus we would have the entire divine family of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit present in the human family. God has in fact communicated himself entirely to the world by having a specific personal presence in Mary, in Jesus and in Joseph. This is a contribution that I tried to make to Josephology, not affirmed with this clarity in the tradition. This is not yet an official doctrine, but, as they say in theology, a theologumen, a well-founded hypothesis, always under the appreciation of the theological community and the Magisterium.
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– Your book delves into the silence of Maria’s husband … a silence that does not prevent him from being the protagonist … What could we learn today in the 21st century from that silence?
The silence of Saint Joseph is not without meaning. In our interpretation it is the way in which he assumes the mystery of the eternal Father, source and origin of all divinity, which makes him the appropriate subject to receive the Father in his self-communication. But it also has a spiritual and existential meaning. In the official Church it is the popes, bishops and priests who speak. The people of God live, generally a deep silence. There is a powerful popular, everyday and anonymous Christianity that few realize. In this situation of silence live a large part of Christians, our grandparents and grandmothers, our parents and other Christians who take the Gospel seriously and follow the path of Jesus. San José, due to his silence and anonymity, is part of this type of world.
He is the representative of the humble, “good people”, buried in their daily lives of ashes, earning their living with generally poorly paid work and honestly leading their families on the path of Jesus, of love, of solidarity, of piety. family. St. Joseph is truly the patron of this popular, anonymous church of what Jesus called “my younger brothers and sisters” in chapter 25 of the Gospel of St. Matthew. From this silence we can get attitudes that are not very present in this world, full of words, sounds and all forms of communication. The human being needs silence, first to listen to the other and then to listen to his own heart, his interiority that no one can penetrate but God himself. Saint Joseph and Jesus himself lived in this environment for 30 years before beginning the proclamation of the Gospel.
– Can today’s man respond to the model of a father and a man like Saint Joseph?
Saint Joseph was a husband, a father, a craftsman and an educator who initiated his son Jesus in the piety and religious traditions of his people. The virtues cited by Pope Francis in his Patris amore are the natural virtues of those who live a life as Saint Joseph lived it: being a kind, tender, obedient, welcoming father, of creative, hard-working courage and living in the shadows, that is, in the common anonymity of most people. They are cross-cultural values. Saint Joseph lived it in his Hebraic culture, we, in another time, give these fundamental virtues the characteristics of our time. Times change, but fundamental attitudes do not change. That is why Saint Joseph can be presented as a reference to a father and a well-integrated family. The great poet Paul Claudel had a special admiration for the silence of Saint Joseph. In a 1934 letter to a friend he wrote: “Silence is the father of the Word. There in Nazareth there are only three very poor people who simply love each other. They are those who are going to change the face of the Earth ”.
