Saturday, July 3, 2010

St Joseph, The Father of All Fathers



Joseph, the appointed father of Jesus.  Appointed by God Himself, is the Model of Fatherhood. I am currently reading The Life and Glories of St Joseph, by Edward Healy Thompson,MA. In this interesting book, it starts off with the importance of St Joseph. Even though St Joseph was the true King of the Jews, prior to Jesus(by proof of his geneology), he lived a most humble life. St Thomas' Summa Theologica made reference to hierarchies of grace. Just as there are orders of grace in Heaven, each excelling the other in proportion to their approximation to God, so too are there orders of grace on earth. The highest of all these orders is the Hypostatic Union. The Hypostatic Union is Jesus Christ, God and Man. "By the Hypostatic Union is meant that the Eternal Son of God, in His Incarnation, assumed human nature, and united it to Himself in Personal unity; in other words, that in the one Divine Person of Jesus Christ, the two Natures, the Divine Nature and the Human Nature, ever distinct in themselves, became inseparably and eternally united."
Among the orders of grace is the order of the Patriarchs. They preceded the Highest order of the Hypostatic Union. Some of these are Abraham and to David, it was expressly revealed to these men that the Savior of men should come from their blood and be born to the world. Now the highest order, Hypostatic Union where Jesus the Christ is head, has place St Joseph in a sovereign order. Three make up that order, Jesus, Mary and Joseph

I can not go into more detail of St Joseph's importance for then I would be rewriting this book here, but what I can say is if you thirst to understand this more so, The Life and Glories of St Joseph is a beautiful book on this topic. Here is my last quote from the book, beautifully written and pointing to St Joseph, who is model of all Fathers and Patron of the Church.
"It is an exceeding Honor to Joseph to be comprised in the same order wherein are Jesus Himself, the Son of God, the King of Kings, and Mary Mother of God and Queen of the Universe, to be united with them in the closest relations, and enjoy their most entire confidence. The nobles of the earth deem themselves to be highly honored in being brought into near association with monarchs of renown, holding the foremost places in their courts, and being the most trusted in their councils. What, then, shall we say of Joseph, who, placed in the order of the Hypostatic Union, was destined by God, not only to be the first in His court and the closest in His confidence, but even to be the reputed father of the King of kings; to be, not only the confidential friend, but the very spouse of the most exalted of all the empresses in the universe? Next to the Divine Maternity, no honor in the world is comparable with this.

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