You know, when you think about it, he had to be a great man of faith to endure and overcome the doubts and questions concerning the relationship. And if that wasn't enough, Mary's cousin was a part of the priestly class and he had a big mouth counter-culture hippie for a nephew. He could not hide anywhere but in his carpenter's shop.
"You know, when you think about it, he had to be a great man of faith to endure and overcome the doubts and questions concerning the relationship."
Indeed he was and rather underrated I'm afraid by many Christians. What a situation to face! Tradition (I know, I know!) tells us that he was chosen by the priests at the Temple for Mary and that he was quite old, about 70 and a widower (which has given rise to speculation that the "brothers" refered to were step brothers. She was an orphan by the time of her betrothal.
Its the humanity of +Joseph which so impresses me and which this Nativity icon which The Church has given us demonstrates so forcefully. Sometimes I think that Christians view the Church, through Western eyes, as something run by rigid rules uniformly and rigorously applied with no snesitive understanding of the human situation. This icon shows otherwise. The Church knows that we will have doubts, even the step father of The Lord had them and that's OK. That's why I said I'm not offended that Protestants don't accept our Marian dogmas. Orthodoxy reminds us that our doubts about The Faith are inevitable whether they are purely internal, born of our distorted state, or prompted by external influences like demons. The best any of us can do is pray "Lord I believe; help my unbelief."